Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Socialist Horizon: Building a New Party

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Very interesting indeed.  Good riddance to "horizontalism" I say.  Mind you
the libertarian impulse will regroup, methinks. In any case, we desperately
need the USA to radicalize effectively and quickly.  If Corbynism can be a
catalyst in Europe why can't we have one in the USA?

My own answer from this distance and from the unplumbed depths of my
ignorance is that the most recent crucial mistake was Sanders' party piece
with the Democrats.

comradely

Gary

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 12:33 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> Interesting article that posits the DSA as a rejection of the
> "horizontalism" that was so trendy 10 to 20 years ago under the impact of
> Zapatismo, John Holloway, et al. I think the DSA is an important
> development but I wouldn't exaggerate its possibilities, especially since
> there seems to be a continuing infatuation with "progressive" Democrats.
>
> http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41727-the-socialist-
> horizon-building-a-new-party
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[Marxism] The hard sell

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The radical Australian economist has an interesting blog <
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/> on the role of the CIA in France
1985. The CIA document is at <
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP86S00588R000300380001-5.PDF>.
The document reveals how the CIA sought to both monitor and influence. the
CIA particularly rejoiced in the decline in influence of Sartre and the
older Marxist intellectuals and were heartened by the advent of the new
philosophers.


Mitchell gives the following quote of how changes in the intellectual
climate


 ‘… have permitted the younger generation of French intellectuals to adopt
a more open attitude towards the United States. This in turn has given rise
to a new wave of genuinely pro-American sentiment, rooted in the vogue of
American popular culture, in respect for the American economic vitality of
the 1980s, and in admiration for the new image of self-confidence that the
United States now projects in the world. ‘


Reading this I wonder to what extent the image of the Trump Presidency
constitutes a problem for the CIA.  We know that Trump cannot visit the UK.
True, he had a successful tour of France, but in the aftermath,
perhaps  because
of his ass-licking,  Macron’s popularity plunged. Chris Uhlmann of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a critique of Trump that went
viral

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-10/how-chris-uhlmanns-g20-takedown-of-donald-trump-went-viral/8695144




This was essentially an lament by a right winger for the Good Old Days when
the USA was the "Leader of the Free World" and was fully engaged in the
Cold War . Trump's Kill Bill speech was I think meant to recapture the
spirit of the Good Old Days and to reassure the likes of Uhlmann.


Real problems are not so easily solved though. The economic vitality
referred to in the CIA report has long gone.  American popular culture has
collapsed into reality television (!). Nor has the spectacle of degenerates
marching by  torch light and chanting “Jews will not replace us” done much
for anyone’s self-confidence.

I don't envy the CIA's task of selling Trump to the world.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s 2017 Phoenix, Arizona Rally Full Speech Transcript | Time.com

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I must be getting old, but this speech kind of spooked me.  He is a crazy
mutha...  and I was not reassured by the alternative Trump (the Kill Bill
shtick) crafted by Kelly & McMaster.

I also do not think he will resign and I do not think this congress has the
will to impeach him.

Richard Seymour seems to read Trump as an index of a political decline.
Certainly I cannot stress strongly enough  that from outside America, Trump
appears to be barking mad.  Even the most sycophantic of governments - the
Australian government- is embarrassed by Trump.

I think Trump will bumble on to the next crisis which he will successfully
endeavor to make worse. My guess for the source of the crisis remains the
relationship with China and the focus will be freedom of navigation in the
South China Sea.

ae

Gary

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 12:50 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> Trump in full meltdown mode.
>
> "Now, you know, I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You
> know, the elite. They're elite? I went to better schools than they did. I
> was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful
> apartment, and I live in the White House, too, which is really great."
>
> http://time.com/4912055/donald-trump-phoenix-arizona-transcript/
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Re: [Marxism] Blacks for Trump?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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In Australia Pauline Hanson the One Nation Senator (think ein Reich) used
to appear in public and in the background beaming would be some poor old
Aboriginal man. He's gone now in her latest incarnation.

But the technique is the same

comradely

Gary

On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> I watched Trump's rally in Phoenix, Arizona for a few minutes last night
> and like most people was struck by a young Black man with a rather demented
> smile waving a "Blacks for Trump" sign. It turns out he has a website. Here
> is what you will find there:
>
> Republican Senators blocking Trump are Cherokees & Mormons & are
> infiltraters in the Rep. Senate like McCain to block Trump & Muller are
> coming down with Great Wrath because their wicked time to block good policy
> is short, Rev.12:10 & Dan.8:25!
>
> Proof that tho ur mixed with these Racist Cherokees ur not them because ur
> Taxed & Regulated etc. & they're not, they hate black & white people
> perpetually Eze.35:5 & Gen.36:1-5!
>
> http://www.honestfact.com/
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Re: [Marxism] Inconvenient

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Thanks for this

comradely

Gary

On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 12:46 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> INCONVENIENT
> Written by Humberto Costantini
> Translated by Sharlene Newman
>
> I am not going to say that I was in the best possible world
> but at least I had an archive
> with all of its moons perfectly sorted,
> the primrose folded four ways in the center drawer
> here and there absurdities rest
> off to the side of the bureau.
>
> I do not claim to have been in the best possible world
> but at least three or four friends delighted in my wine,
> and three or four lovers delighted in my bed,
> and my publisher truly believed in my novel,
> and at a quarter to six
> the timid ghosts quietly returned to chat with me.
>
> I will not say that I was in the best of all possible worlds
> but my future went on for at least a week out
> wherein one could foresee one hundred and twenty lines written,
> at least one insignificant inebriation,
> as well as five minutes of daily exercise.
>
> I was not, I will admit, in the best world possible
> but generally things were reasonably clear;
> fireflies did not hang from the roof as they do now,
> nor did trains keep a wakeful vigil until dawn,
> nor did September arrive declaring its presence
> the wind did not show up in order to laugh to death at my face.
>
> I do not wish to say that I was in the best of possible worlds
> but this giant, trembling moon,
> this unusual smitten moon,
> this terrible red stop light of a moon,
> this moon made of insomnia and small verses…
> how maddening Lord,
> how barbaric.
>
> INCONVENIENTE
> Escrito por Humberto Costantini
> Traducido por Sharlene Newman
>
> Yo no voy a decir que estaba en el mejor de los mundos
> pero al menos tenía un bibliorato
> con todas las lunas perfectamente clasificadas,
> la primavera plegada en cuatro en el cajón del medio
> y alguno que otro disparate
> a un costadito del bargueño.
>
> Yo no digo que estaba en el mejor de los mundos
> pero tres o cuatro amigos apreciaban mi vino,
> y tres o cuatro amantes apreciaban mi cama,
> y mi editor creía firmemente en la novela,
> y a las seis menos cuarto
> dócilmente volvían a platicar conmigo los fantasmas.
>
> Yo no diré que estaba en el mejor de los mundos
> pero tenía un futuro hasta de una semana
> donde estaban previstos ciento veinte renglones,
> alguna intrascendente borrachera,
> y hasta los cinco minutos diarios de gimnasia.
>
> Yo no estaba, lo admito, en el mejor de los mundos
> pero en general las cosas eran juiciosamente claras;
> no colgaban luciérnagas del techo como ahora,
> ni velaban los trenes hasta la madrugada,
> ni septiembre llegaba con nombre y apellido
> ni el viento venía para morirse de risa de mi cara.
>
> Yo no quiero decir que estaba en el major de los mundos
> pero esta enorme luna estremecida,
> esta insólita luna enamorada,
> esta terrible luna rojo stop de semáforo,
> esta luna de insomnios y versitos…
> qué trastorno Señor,
> qué cosa bárbara.
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humberto_Costantini
> Humberto "Cacho" Costantini (April 8, 1924 – June 7, 1987) was an
> Argentine writer and poet whose work is filled with the rich slang
> (porteño) of Buenos Aires. Except for his years of exile in Mexico, his
> life was lived in and around Buenos Aires.
>
> Costantini was born and died in Buenos Aires, the only child of Italian
> Jewish immigrants who lived in the barrio of Villa Pueyrredon. From his
> marriage to Nela Nur Fernandez, he had three children: Violeta, Ana and
> Daniel. After he finished his university studies, he became a medical
> veterinarian. He practiced his profession in the fields near the city of
> Lobería, in the province of Buenos Aires, where he moved with his wife.
> There his two daughters were born.
>
> In 1955 he returned to Buenos Aires, and his son was born shortly
> thereafter. He worked in various jobs: veterinarian, salesman, potter,
> medical researcher, etc. Because of a fierce discipline, working "nailed to
> the chair", he was able to write and rewrite everyday.
>
> Costantini was the victim of political persecutions and blacklists. That
> posture of confronting the powerful that "Cacho" exercised naturally,
> without fuss, as the only possible road by which to travel through life,
> created both hatred and profound l

[Marxism] Are we in trouble?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Over breakfast I heard Trump drone on from the tele printer about his
determination to kill, kill, kill.. Is this the new Trump with speech
carefully writenn by the Pentagon?

Some commentators told us to put our faith in McMaster and Kelly. And this
is the best the generals could come up with - Kill, kill, kill?
Why am I not surprised?

On a more optimistic front the fall out from Charlottesville has led to
calls from Indigenous Australians for a review of some of our monuments.
These include Robert Towns' statue in Townsville.  He was part of the
notorious slave trade in the late 19th Century when Pacific Islanders were
lured & kidnapped to slave in Queensland's sugar cane fields.

Then there is the statue of Captain Cook in Sydney which explicitly names
him as the "discoverer" of Australia.That claim has been offensive to
Indigenous Australians for a very long time.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] North Korea

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Hi John

I belong to the proxy threat to China school of thought (Oops). Admittedly,
we do not have all the information we need.  I think that China warned
Trump that they would not tolerate a nuclear attack on North Korea.  That
they would have done secretly. Publicly, they threatened North Korea with
Chinese neutrality if North Korea attacked first.

So a stand off has resumed.

I do not put much store in one quote from Bannon.  The point is that the
American state is fragmented and it contains sections that want a contest
of strength with China.  Here in Australia when the "Defence lobby" appear
on tv they are blood thirsty "all the way with the USA" types.  Yet China
is our number one trading partner and we sold the port of Darwin to the
Chinese!

Now North Korea has directly threatened Australia because our weak PM said
we would join any war on Korea/

My own guess is that the corrupt cabal that runs China would like to ditch
North Korea but they cannot. A nuclear attack on the North would be seen by
most Chinese as the Korean War Act 2. We all know that Act 1 was aimed at
China.

comradely

Gary

On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 7:57 PM, John Reimann via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> "Not since 2002, as the United States built a case for war in Iraq, has
> there been so much debate inside the White House about the merits — and the
> enormous risks — of pre-emptive military action against an adversary
> nation. Like its predecessors, the Trump administration is trying to
> pressure North Korea through sanctions to dismantle its nuclear program.
> But both President Trump and his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R.
> McMaster, have talked openly about a last-resort option if diplomacy fails
> and the nuclear threat mounts: what General McMaster describes as
> “preventive war.”"
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/world/asia/north-korea-
> war-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&
> module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
>
> I am curious what comrades think as to the cause of this build-up. Some say
> that it's simply a proxy for a "war" with China, but I'm not convinced. For
> one thing, the recently departed Steve Bannon, who is a real hawk as far as
> China, opposed a military attack on N. Korea. I know others who claim it is
> simply a matter of opposition to one of the remaining non-capitalist
> countries in the world. But present N. Korean economic policy is similar to
> the economic policies of Gorbachev in the waning years of the Soviet Union.
>
> I do think there is the concern of N. Korea spreading nuclear weapon
> technology to a whole host of other secondary powers, including Iran.
>
> John Reimann
>
>
> --
> "No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
> Asata Shakur
> Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com and //www.facebook.com/
> WorkersIntlNetwork?ref=stream
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Michael Moore’s Broadway Debut Finds the Provocateur Where He’s Needed Least | Village Voice

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I might be getting soft in my old age, but I think this review is a bit
harsh.  Moore can be all over the place politically at times but he is
still the filmmaker that combined the roles of performance artist and
documentary film maker so brilliantly in

*Roger and Me.*
comradely

Gary


On Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 6:58 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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> A shrewd review.
>
> https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/08/16/michael-moore-broadw
> ay-show-terms-surrender-review/
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Constituent Assembly: Venezuelan Thermidor?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I hope sincerely Comrade Joaquin will not mind me sending this to the
list.  It is truly meant in the best spirit of dialog between comrades.  I
sent his post to my good friend  and comrade Jim McIlroy who is the joint
author of a book on Chavez Voices from Venezuela : behind the Bolivarian
Revolution . 

Jim sent me the post below and agreed that I could send it to the list.

comradely

Gary



Hi Gary,
  I haven't got time at present to give a detailed commentary on this
[Joaquin's] article, but the general point is that we on the left have to
decide which side we are on in the final instance.

  (This year is the centenary of the Russian Revolution. No doubt there
were similar commentaries by Western leftists about the "undemocratic"
nature of the October Revolution. Maduro is definitely not Lenin, by the
way).
  Whatever the, very real, mistakes of the Maduro government, and their
political weaknesses, the stakes are clear in Venezuela: No volvaran! (No
return to the past!)
  The article is full of errors...eg, contrary to the coverage, the
majority of deaths in the violence have come directly or in-directly from
the right-wing opposition.
  His stuff on the Constituent Assembly is pure sophistry. The analogy with
Thermidor/Bonapartism is ridiculous. The CA may be a turning point in the
crisis, if the masses can successfully move to the centre of Venezuelan
politics again.
  The best source of information on Venezuela is Telesur English,
venezuelanalysis.com, and dare I say Green Left Weekly (a couple of good
articles in there this week).
  I will send you some more material on all this when I get time,

  Venceremos!

  Jim Mc.


On Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 7:02 PM, Gary MacLennan 
wrote:

> Hi Jim
>
> What do you think of this?
>
> ae
>
> Gary
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: Joaquin Bustelo via Marxism 
> Date: Tue, Aug 15, 2017 at 5:51 PM
> Subject: [Marxism] The Constituent Assembly: Venezuelan Thermidor?
> To: gary.maclenn...@gmail.com
>
>
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> *
>
> At the outset, I should explain that for many years I did not try to
> follow the Venezuelan Revolution closely, but in the last couple of years I
> have been increasingly forced to do so.
>
> That because I am the producer and co-host of the program "Hablemos con
> Teodoro." It is a daily 2-hour Spanish-language news, analysis and call-in
> show. Our station is Radio Información, a progressive and now internet-only
> service organized by people from the immigrant rights movement (see the
> footnote for too much information about us).
>
> For some time I have been disturbed by the seeming direction of the
> Venezuelan process under President Nicolás Maduro. Obviously Venezuela
> faces imperialist hostility and subversion as well as the revanchism of
> traditional ruling class figures and families (Capriles, etc.) who dominate
> the "opposition" and quite obviously look to imperialist backing to fulfill
> their dreams of a return to yesterday's Venezuela.
>
> After becoming president in 2013, Maduro had at least formally abided by
> Chavez's Bolivarian Constitution for a couple of years, but since last
> year, after losing (and very badly) the National Assembly elections at the
> end of 2005, his government has defied constitutional provisions by
> refusing to accept the authority of the resulting legislature, refusing to
> hold a recall referendum on his mandate, packing the national Electoral
> Commission, etc.
>
> (But note that the opposition and its National Assembly majority are also
> partly to blame. It was quick to abandon the ground of defending the
> Chavista constitution --especially the recall referendum--, turning instead
> to will of the wisp nostrums like that Maduro by his actions had abandoned
> the presidency.)
>
> This spring, the Maduro administration adopted an all-but-explicit
> anti-constitutional course, with the Supreme Court proclaiming itself,
> formally, on its own initiative, the national legislature. It was quickly
> forced to abandon the usurpation by very widespread denunciations including
> from within the government, given voice above all by the Attorney General.
>
> However this was quickly followed by Maduro calling a Constituent Assembly.
>
> Contrary to what the constitution seems to require,

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Nativism Needs Fake History

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Good on you Mark.  Maintain the rage.  It was never more necessary

comradely

Gary

On Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 1:15 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> By Mark Lause
>
> Stephen Miller is the latest clone of Ann Coulter offered the public by
> the administration of President Donald J. Trump.  Miller took it on himself
> to abuse and denounce a room of reporters against the sentiment of the Emma
> Lazarus poem “The New Colossus” [1883], inspired by the imminent arrival of
> “Liberty Enlightening the World”–popularly known as the Statue of Liberty.
> In 1903, the park service placed a plaque bearing the words before the
> statue.
>
> full: http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13617
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[Marxism] Trump et alia

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The situation in Korea is beginning to cause a good deal of anxiety.
Australia's Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has already distinguished
himself by declaring Australia's willingness to go to war if the USA is
attacked by North Korea.

Turnbull is of course under a great deal of domestic pressure that is due
in no small part to the ongoing collapse of the neoliberal economic model.
Australia's economy suffers from the Dutch Disease Syndrome where resourced
based economies suffer from economic imbalance.

He is also in strike around the issue of gay marriage or marriage
equality.  A social progressivist himself he has betrayed these ideals to
keep his right wing rivals at bay.  The result is that he looks and is a
weak Prime Minister and that in part explains his macho posturing with his
talk of declaring war on Korea.

But what actually is happening with the Korean crisis?  The notion that
North Korea constitutes a threat to the world is beyond laughable, but in
this crazy world, it might even be taken seriously. It certainly seems to
be in the world called into being by Trump's unhinged language.

What is the meaning of the Chinese statement opposing regime change but
saying they would remain neutral if North Korea attacked first? Has China
secretly warned the USA not to launch a preemptive strike on Korea?

Then I would dearly love to see an intelligent account of the events in
Virginia. Did the anti-fa forces smash up the Nazis? If so good on them.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Trotskyists everywhere had a nrrow miss

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Religion and Bush seemed to have paid better.

Comradely

Gary

On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 7:56 PM, Gregory Adler via Marxism <
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>
> Tony Blair claims he had a brief flirtation with Trotskyism but ended up
> preferring religion and Bush.
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/10/blair-
> reveals-he-toyed-with-marxism-after-reading-book-on-trotsky
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Democracy is dying – and it’s startling how few people are worried | Paul Mason | Opinion | The Guardian

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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"This repertoire of autocratic rule is of course not new; what makes it
novel is its concerted and combined use by elected rulers – Putin, Erdoğan,
Orbán, Trump, Maduro, Duterte in the Philippines and Modi in India – who
are quite clearly engaged in a rapid, purposive and common project to
hollow out democracy".

 I have a lot of time for Mason and follow his twitter account avidly.  But
I note his list of dictators includes Maduro along side the likes of Orban
and Duterte. what this shows is how successful the "velvet revolution"
tactic has been In Venezuela.

I am inclined to read the present conjuncture as one where the decay of the
Neoliberal Centre is such that we are in the midst of the struggle to
create a new centre.  Corbynism would give us, or attempt to give us, a
quasi-Keynesian Centre. And, to be frank, I would settle for that in a
heart beat.  But of course I am not saying that the ruling class would
accept it as well. Nor do I believe for one minute that the capitalist
class can simply be legislated into civility and decency. A Corbyn
government will be a crisis government.

For me Venezuela represents a more likely path.  My reading of it is that
the events in Venezuela are about doubling down on the old neoliberal
centre. Pinochet played a vanguard role in creating the neoliberal centre
that spread around the world. The opposition in Venezuela could do the same
and herald in an era of quite vicious reaction.

comradely

Gary


On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 10:12 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
>
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/31/democr
> acy-dying-people-worried-putin-erdogan-trump-world
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Re: [Marxism] Hemingway was a monster

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I'm a vegetarian so you can guess what I make of all this mindless
slaughter.  But it is best to go back to the writing. Indian Camp is still
one of the best short stories I have ever read and the ending is pure
mystical brilliance about death.

comradely

Gary

On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 6:03 PM, Greg McDonald via Marxism <
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>
> Sounds more like a typical redneck than anything else. Never been a fan of
> trophy hunting.
>
> On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 8:49 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
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> > *
> >
> > BOOKFORUM JUNE/JULY/AUG 2017
> >
> > Appetite for Destruction
> > Ernest Hemingway’s death trip
> >
> > by JOY WILLIAMS
> >
> > The unusually striking photograph on the cover of Mary V. Dearborn’s new
> > biography Ernest Hemingway shows the writer in his prime in 1933 sitting
> on
> > the cushioned stern of a boat, possibly his thirty-eight-foot cabin
> cruiser
> > the Pilar, and aiming a pistol at the camera. He always carried guns on
> > board to shoot sharks or, when bored or annoyed, seabirds and turtles. He
> > was thirty-four when this photo was taken and he had recently discovered
> > Key West and the fabulous Gulf Stream with its gigantic marlin, sailfish,
> > and tarpon. He fished and fished and fished, insatiable. There were the
> > heroic fighting fish, the trophy fish—some of which he used as punching
> > bags after they were strung up on the dock—but all provided pleasure.
> When
> > a colorful school of dorado appeared on the surface around the Pilar,
> > Hemingway and his party landed eighteen of them in five minutes. They’d
> be
> > used as fertilizer for his wife’s flower beds. He referred to this time,
> > the decade of the ’30s, as his “belle epoque,” for there was not only the
> > happy scouring of the Gulf Stream, but also the hunting in Wyoming for
> elk
> > and antelope (for lighter fare he shot prairie dogs from a moving car)
> and
> > the safari in Africa, where lions, leopards, cheetahs, and oryx could be
> > collected, though it rankled him when others killed bigger animals than
> he
> > did, or those with darker manes, bigger racks, or, in the case of rhinos,
> > larger horns.
> >
> > “I like to shoot a rifle and I like to kill and Africa is where you do
> > that,” he said.
> >
> > But killing could be fun anywhere. In Sun Valley, Idaho, he and two of
> his
> > young sons, Gregory and Patrick, visiting from school, shot four hundred
> > jackrabbits during one adventure. Years later, another son, Jack, would
> > reminisce that “one of the most memorable moments of my lifelong
> > relationship with my father” took place in Cuba on the roof of the Finca
> > Vigía, Hemingway’s home there, where they drank pitchers of martinis and
> > shot “great quantities of buzzards.” The highlight for Patrick, “the last
> > really great, good time we all had together,” was “dropping hand grenades
> > on turtles” from the deck of the Pilar during the bizarre sub-hunting
> days
> > of the ’40s, the acts “justified by the need to learn how long it was
> > between when you pulled out the pin and when it went off.”
> >
> > It is said that Hemingway never killed an elephant—he admired their
> > fidelities and social structures apparently—but his youngest son,
> Gregory,
> > the “troubled” child, the son who after several wives and eight children
> > underwent sex-reassignment surgery and died in a Florida jail as “Gloria”
> > Hemingway, shot eighteen elephants in a month. It’s possible he shot them
> > to annoy his father, whom he considered a “gin-soaked abusive monster,”
> but
> > he also claimed it was just damn relaxing to kill elephants. The activity
> > made him less anxious about things.
> >
> > Gregory wrote a book about “Papa.” So did his half-brother Jack. So did
> > Hemingway’s brother Leicester, and Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary. In his
> > younger years he was quite charismatic and people who knew him then
> > remembered that and wrote about it. The bulls, t

Re: [Marxism] Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The serious discussion to be had is whether Bannon can barge his way
through to a Keynesianism of the Right or whether we will have a doubling
down of neoliberalism. I don't think Bannon will succeed because there is
no Left that would frighten the American ruling class into abandoning the
dictates of the Chicago School.

Comradely

Gary

On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 9:51 PM, Mark Lause via Marxism <
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>
> The common thinking on this is that Trump has had a terribly narrow
> experience.  He's only run his own company and has never really had to
> learn the arts of persuasion or work as part of team.  I think he does what
> he thinks has worked for him in the past, but that's not the same as having
> a long term strategic planning.
>
> This is a problem of a contemporary American civil society.  There are
> variations of this in both political parties . . . .and across the Left, as
> well.
>
> ML
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Re: [Marxism] Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Hi Daniel,

Weak, naive and stupid are of course all subjective criteria and you are
probably right about the analysis, but it was enjoyable.  To be honest
though I myself am inclined to think Trump is as stupid as dog shit on a
hot day. Give most of us an ultra rich parent and a few hundred sycophants
surrounding us we all might look quite smart.

But the truth is that he is representative of a very deep crisis in
American capital. I look at things from Brisbane and to be honest I cannot
believe that the arrogance of the American ruling class was such that they
would go to a buffoon with a severe narcissism disorder like Trump.  At
times I think we have not seen such arrogance since the German ruling class
went with Hitler.

comradely regards

Gary

On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 8:13 PM, Daniel Lindvall via Marxism <
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>
> Trump manoeuvred his way to the US presidency. He has lived a life of -
> from his point of view - almost nothing but success, a life that has
> probably been almost exactly the way he wanted it. The guy is obviously an
> utter asshole and a sociopath, but  ”weak”, ”naive”, "stupid"..? Come on!
>
> Website: http://filmint.nu/
> Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FilmInt
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/FilmInt
>
>
>
> > 28 juli 2017 kl. 21:19 skrev Louis Proyect via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>:
> >
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> > *
> >
> > (Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon.)
> >
> > WSJ Op-Ed, July 28, 2017
> > Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor
> > Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little
> cries, usually just after dawn.
> > By Peggy Noonan
> >
>
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Re: [Marxism] NZ elections: Labour's continuing malaise

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Does the fate of Pasok wait for the Labour Party, Phil? Profoundly hope so.

comradely

Gary


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On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 7:40 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism <
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>
> Less than 8 weeks out from the election, Labour continues to decline in the
> polls.  Considering this is the end of National's third term, this is a
> unique situation in NZ political history.
>
> But given that National (the 'Tories') are a bit to the left of Labour on a
> number of important poltical issues, it's not really a surprise - although
> it is to much of the left - that more blue-collar workers voted National
> than Labour last time and will probably do so again.
>
> Yet more bad news for Labour:
> https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/07/31/more-bad-news-for-labour/
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Re: [Marxism] venezuelan election for the Constituent Assembly

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Michael,

If you can find the time for an extended piece on the Venezuelan situation
that would be deeply appreciated.  I was dismayed to note that the
radical/progressive Radio Station Novara Media out of London is to arrange
a debate on Venezuela - for and against. That to me means that the counter
revolutionary forces in Venezuela have been very successful in their self
presentation.

As I read things, the neoliberal centre is in crisis. The UK is about to
undertake the construction of a Keynesian centre, but in South America we
apparently are having a doubling down on neoliberalism.

I am thinking here of the vanguard role of Pinochet. Is Corbyn the future
or is some rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born?

comradely

Gary

comradely

Gary

On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 2:24 PM, michael a. lebowitz via Marxism <
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>
> Initial reports from the Electoral Commission is that over 8 million [or
> 41% of the electorate] voted.
>   michael
>
> --
> -
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
>  University Drive
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
> Home:   Phone 604-689-9510
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>
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Re: [Marxism] Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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This cheered me up on a foggy Monday morning!  Speech writer Richard Nixon,
eh? In any case she has Trump down pat.

comradely

Gary

On Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 5:19 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> (Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon.)
>
> WSJ Op-Ed, July 28, 2017
> Trump Is Woody Allen Without the Humor
> Half his tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little
> cries, usually just after dawn.
> By Peggy Noonan
>
> The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous,
> brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It
> is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost
> daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity.
>
> He’s not strong and self-controlled, not cool and tough, not low-key and
> determined; he’s whiny, weepy and self-pitying. He throws himself, sobbing,
> on the body politic. He’s a drama queen. It was once said, sarcastically,
> of George H.W. Bush that he reminded everyone of her first husband. Trump
> must remind people of their first wife. Actually his wife, Melania, is
> tougher than he is with her stoicism and grace, her self-discipline and
> desire to show the world respect by presenting herself with dignity.
>
> Half the president’s tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive,
> shrill little cries, usually just after dawn. “It’s very sad that
> Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very
> little to protect their president.” The brutes. Actually they’ve been
> laboring to be loyal to him since Inauguration Day. “The Republicans never
> discuss how good their health care bill is.” True, but neither does Mr.
> Trump, who seems unsure of its content. In just the past two weeks, of the
> press, he complained: “Every story/opinion, even if should be positive, is
> bad!” Journalists produce “highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting.”
> They are “DISTORTING DEMOCRACY.” They “fabricate the facts.”
>
> It’s all whimpering accusation and finger-pointing: Nobody’s nice to me.
> Why don’t they appreciate me?
>
> His public brutalizing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t strong,
> cool and deadly; it’s limp, lame and blubbery. “Sessions has taken a VERY
> weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he tweeted this week. Talk about
> projection.
>
> He told the Journal’s Michael C. Bender he is disappointed in Mr. Sessions
> and doesn’t feel any particular loyalty toward him. “He was a senator, he
> looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, ‘What do I have to lose?’ And
> he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great loyal thing about the
> endorsement.” Actually, Mr. Sessions supported him early and put his
> personal credibility on the line. In Politico, John J. Pitney Jr. of
> Claremont McKenna College writes: “Loyalty is about strength. It is about
> sticking with a person, a cause, an idea or a country even when it is
> costly, difficult or unpopular.” A strong man does that. A weak one would
> unleash his resentments and derive sadistic pleasure from their unleashing.
>
> The way American men used to like seeing themselves, the template they
> most admired, was the strong silent type celebrated in classic mid-20th
> century films—Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Henry Fonda. In time the style
> shifted, and we wound up with the nervous and chattery. More than a decade
> ago the producer and writer David Chase had his Tony Soprano mourn the
> disappearance of the old style: “What they didn’t know is once they got
> Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings they wouldn’t be able to shut him
> up!” The new style was more like that of Woody Allen. His characters
> couldn’t stop talking about their emotions, their resentments and needs.
> They were self-justifying as they acted out their cowardice and anger.
>
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[Marxism] a query

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I wonder if anyone one on the list has any thoughts on Frank Furedi's work
on the Culture of Fear.   I have done some work in the past with James
Heartfield's take on this, but unfortunately I cannot locate his book -
lost somewhere in my library.

It seems to me as a general position the Spiked on line mob in their move
out of Marxism migrated along the ancient pathway to libertarianism
inflected by Nietzscheanism with its trope of the chest beating heroic
individual trapped between the unwashed and the indifferent.

Nietzsche was and always will be an abiding temptation for the isolated
intellectual in bad times.

I am currently taking a look at Furedi's Culture of Fear Revisited. Some of
the points he makes are undoubtedly valid but truth to tell I am on the
opposite side of the fence from the libertarians most of the time.

Any comments would be very welcome.

ae

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As the centre collapses, it distorts democracy

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I read Odran Waldron's article (http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13575) and
it is very good. But I have a somewhat different take on what is
happening.  For a start we would all agree that the Centre is a relational
concept. It is not something that one would meet at the bottom of the
garden. As it is relational, it has  geographical (spatial) and historical
(time) dimensions. Basically, it helps me to think of Centres as clusters
of common sense - what people expect and what people think is normal.

Against Waldron, I would argue that he is exactly wrong to say that
centrists are always homeless.  For the Centre is precisely where we feel
at home. We do this, as Luckacs pointed out, by converting time into space.
To put this another way, we create the illusion that time has stopped or
been abolished. We indulge in what Bhaskar called 'endism'. For example, we
had Fukuyama talk about reaching the end of history.

I am not denying that Gary Liniker is being insincere when he tweets he
feels homeless.  But what he is experiencing is the return of  the flow of
time. Think of the Heraclitus fragment - "It is impossible to step into the
same river twice for new waters are forever closing around you".  That is a
feeling we fear, probably because Consciousness does not want to die. We
all desperately want to proclaim the end of time.

I have lived under two distinct Centres -  First there was the
Keynesian-Social Security Centre which lasted approximately from 1945 to
about 1973-1975. We then entered what Koselleck terms  a 'saddle-time'.
Roughly, this was from 1975-1984 during which time a new Centre - the
Neoliberal Centre was established.

I think some things are worth pointing out.  The Neoliberal Centre was
established though great struggles. These included the brutal Pinochet Coup
in Chile and the UK miner's strike of 1984-5.  In Australia we had the
sacking of the Labor Government in 1975 and the crushing of the electricity
workers strike in Queensland in 1985.

On a philosophical level, the fact that I can name the Neoliberal Centre
shows that there is thinking which is more universal than neoliberalism and
that therefore it is in crisis. Hegel puts it like this.

'If I inquire after their origin and confine them to the point whence they
arose, then I have transcended them; for now it is I who am the universal,
and they are the conditioned and limited. If they are supposed to be
validated by my insight, then I have already denied their unshakeable,
intrinsic being' (Phenomenology: 437).

That is why the Right instinctively hate everyone talking about
"neoliberalism", for to name neoliberalism is to challenge it and to
suggest that to say "There is no alternative" is to lie. Here we have the
clue to the power of the Corbynistas' slogan "Another world is possible".

That is also why Barthes talked about the 'ex-nomination' of the ruling
class. When we revolutionaries use the phrase 'ruling class' outside of our
circles, everyone else rolls their eyes and taps their foreheads.  We sound
mad. Trust me on that one.

The ruling class are so powerful that they do not have a name.  It was not
until the Occupy Movement of 2011 that they universally became "the 1%",
that is, they were named.

Neoliberalism has lasted until the present but we are in the throes of a
crisis of the Neoliberal Centre and we may emerge from this into a new
centre. Hopefully, that will be something like the centre that Corbyn is
offering in the UK.  But my Trotskyist background prompts me to think that
there will have to be a huge struggle around getting the ruling class to
accept a Keynesian Centre.

It is this struggle that we are seeing at the moment. The defenders of the
Neoliberal Centre fear the masses who are pushing for a new Centre.  When
the new Centre is established the struggles will die down but the potential
for struggle will always be there. But that is enough for today

comradely

Gary

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 7:43 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> Politically homeless was how Gary Lineker put it, not realising that he
> was summing up nicely why it was that people had abandoned the centrism he
> was tweeting about craving.
>
> Centrism always has been and always will be homeless, an absence of
> ideology sheltering itself from the rain with a car

[Marxism] A thought on contemporary politics

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Australian politics is much taken up with a struggle inside the ruling
Liberal Party.  Deposed former Prime Minister Tony Abbot is working
feverishly to undermine the leadership of the man who deposed him, Malcolm
Turnbull. Is there any political significance to the spectacle of one
ambitious Tory dog savaging another ambitious Tory dog? Possibly.  Abbott
is attacking from the Right while Turnbull tries to crab his way out of the
bucket that neoliberalism has dropped the political class into. The other
crab Abbott is determined to drag him down into the pit.

It is exactly the same dilemma the Tories in England face.  The 1% ceiling
on the public sector has cut wages and lowered demand and trapped the
economy in the cycle of low growth.  Even those who are totally convinced
that the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall is at the heart of the
crisis must see that the demand crisis is serious.  But those who rule us
cannot get out of the prison house of neoliberalism.

Thus this week here in Australia, in a savage blow to the low paid, weekend
penalty rates were cut while at the same time the governor of Australia's
reserve bank, Philip Lowe, pleaded with workers to rise up and demand
higher wages.

The mechanism for doing that is of course the union movement and that has
been so badly weakened that unions feel in no position to follow Lowe's
battle cry. The Australian Labor Party meanwhile looks at the polls and
they generally led by 6%.  They seem to think they do not have to do a
Corbyn and can stay with the Austerity Lite program.

The alternative on the Left of the Greens is led by an idiot who
understands nothing of the pressure facing the working class or of the need
to end neoliberalism.  His party is waging an internal war against the only
Green Senator, Lee Rhiannon, who has a grasp of what needs to be done on
the economic front.

So we stagnate in Oz and look on in envious wonder as Corbyn promises to
end neoliberalism. Here youth unemployment is rampant, wages are low,
housing unaffordable and student debt crippling. But the Labor Party will
not promise to end any of this. Maybe if Corbyn were to break through then
we could have a change here.

A word about Trump as seen Down Under.  Chris Uhlmann a right winger, who
works for the public broadcaster here,  has put together a savage attack on
Trump from the Right. The gist of his critique is that Trump is not leading
the West and is making way for the Rise of China (or is it Russia?). The
Right seemed to be gripped by Cold War nostalgia and the good old days of
the unchallenged leadership of the the POTUS. Life was so much better for
white settler colonies then.

Comradely
Gary MacLennan
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[Marxism] On matters political

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My fixation on British politics continues though I do of course not neglect
keeping an eye on things elsewhere, especially Australia.  However,
politics here seem to be stuck in the usual go slow.  We have a
conservative government which is slowly disengaging itself from
neoliberalism in rhetoric but of course does not have an alternative
program. Tories can administer a Keynesian settlement but they will never
initiate one.

So the hegemony of neoliberalism has been threatened but there is no clear
alternative paradigm being put in place. The onward march of Corbyn has yet
to really impinge on public consciousness.  Within the Green, though, the
left wing senator Lee Rhiannon has raised the success of Corbyn in pushing
explicitly socialist politics.  Were Corbyn to make a serious break through
soon, then that would call forth some kind of leftism here.

But Corbyn himself still has to manage the contradictions within the
Parliamentary Labor Party (PLP). It is still a hostile force as the recent
split over Europe shows.

My own reading of this is that the Blairites in the PLP have grown alarmed
at the strength of Corbynism.  Corbyn's speech at Glastonbury marked I
think a deep change in how he is perceived in the popular culture. From
that alarm came a preemptive strike led by Chuka Umunna a right winger. The
challenge has been seen as premature by some, but I think that is to fail
to understand that the Blairites are in a panic.  They think, I believe,
that they must act now before the Corbyn phenomenon is unstoppable.  Hence
Umunna's decision to defy his party and put up an amendment around access
to the single market in the Brexit negotiations.

I do not think the maneuver will succeed. Corbyn's popularity will continue
to grow and he will form the next government. But it will be a crisis
government and his own party will betray him over some crisis or other.

How it will all play out is of course unclear.  I just feel that the
current youth have not experienced a decisive political defeat and they are
gearing up to have a go. There will be a trial of strength between capital
and the rest of us. Of that I am certain. Moreover I remain reasonably
confident that we mi ght even win.

comradely

Gary


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Re: [Marxism] The Elvis Superstar of Marxism's predictions on Trump

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Gawd what a fool.  Is there no end to his outpourings?

comradely

Gary



On Tue, Jun 27, 2017 at 1:16 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> “Read Trump closely – it is difficult to do, I know – and if you extract
> his total racist and sexist stupidities, you will see that here and there,
> where he makes a complete proposal, they’re usually not so bad,” said
> Žižek. “He said he will not totally dismantle universal healthcare, raise
> the minimum wage, and so on.”
>
> “Trump is a paradox: he is really a centrist liberal, and maybe even in
> his economic policies closer to the Democrats, and he desperately tries to
> mask this. So the function of all of these dirty jokes and stupidities is
> to cover up that he is really a pretty ordinary, centrist politician.”
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/28/slavoj-zizek-
> donald-trump-is-really-a-centrist-liberal
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Stone and Putin discuss the problem of gays in the shower room | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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In a shower room with Vladimir Putin?  Yukk! - I'd take the needles in the
eye first.

ae

Gary

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>
>
> https://louisproyect.org/2017/06/24/stone-and-putin-discuss-
> the-problem-of-gays-in-the-shower-room/
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[Marxism] The Pink Tide in the UK

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I have been struck by how uneven political consciousness is and how
opportunities open up and die off in different spaces at differing times.
Pre-WW2 it wasn't until the defeat of the Palestinian revolution of 1936-39
that the present shape of the Middle East was safe. At the same time,
despite the defeat of the General Strike in England as early as 1926, there
was still a chance for the proletariat until the final defeat in Spain in
1937-39.

Similarly, we look like we are about to have a pink tide surge in the UK
while reaction is strengthening in South America and that even after the
defeat of Syriza and the forward march of Podemos halted, .

I remain convinced, as well, that the advent of a Corbyn government is the
key to deep political change in Australia (and presumably New Zealand too).

Ireland, also, can surely not remain undisturbed by what is happening in
the UK and in Northern Ireland.  Curiously, the political inflexibility of
Sinn Fein around refusing symbolic gestures like taking the Oath so they
can sit in the British Parliament tends to preserve their movement.  But it
is the preservation of a mosquito trapped in amber.

They have shown no such inflexibility when it comes to accepting the norms
of neoliberalism during their period of joint rule in Northern Ireland:
hospital closure yes: oaths of loyalty never.

So what do I think will happen? It seems Corbyn believes there will be a
General Election this year. If so, he will be swept into office. When that
happens, the reaction from the ruling class will be swift and brutal.
True, they have already fired off all they had in the media and that did
not work.  But they have a great advantage in that three quarters of the
Parliamentary Labour Party can be called upon to undermine and ultimately
split from a Corbyn government. They have in addition economic levers that
they will call upon.

So I am left with a kind of contradictory message, as befits an old Marxist
relic.  I welcome totally and absolutely a Corbyn victory. I am overjoyed
to have lived long enough to see it about to happen. But. and there is a
very big but, this is class war we are talking about.  We have had 40 years
of class war from above.  We are kidding ourselves, if we expect a general
election to bring an end to it. I am certain a Corbyn government will come
under attack and I worry about whether it has the fighting capacity
required to fight off the coming onslaught.

But for the moment, let us enjoy the thousands of young people who,
wherever they are gathered, spontaneously break into the song of 'Oh Jeremy
Corbyn'.  It is not the Internationale or even the Red Flag, but for the
moment it will suffice.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Was Lenin a German Agent? - The New York Times

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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You don't miss him Lou. Well done

comradely

Gary

On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 12:49 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> I was so riled by this guy teaching at Bard that I had to get it out of my
> system by writing him and Leon Botstein:
>
> MeMeekin, I've seen a lot of stupid professors teaching at Bard College
> over the years and I've become so inured to Leon's traveling circus of
> neocons that I hardly take notice any more. It would be like writing a
> letter to the editor of the NY Post complaining about racism.
>
> But your piece in the NY Times really quite takes the cake. This business
> about Lenin accepting German gold is fresh in my mind since your
> co-religionist Catherine Merridale was quoted along the same lines in a NY
> Times book review. I take up all of this here:
>
> https://louisproyect.org/2017/06/17/did-the-kaiser-fund-the-bolsheviks/
>
> Are you aware that the late U. of Wisconsin history professor Alfred Erich
> Senn wrote an article for the January 1976 Soviet Studies titled “The Myth
> of German Money during the First World War”? He wrote 8 books and had over
> 100 JSTOR articles under his belt in a long and distinguished career.
>
> What will they say about you after your career is over? Another cheap
> red-baiter like the one Leon put into the endowed Alger Hiss chair as a way
> of telling leftist Bard grads that they could kiss his ass?
>
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Was Lenin a German Agent? - The New York Times

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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It drives one mad does it not?  I share your rage.


Still, the fact that there is money to be made out of slandering Lenin just
goes to show his continued relevance. It is very much a case of "the
specter that haunts"

The moment the working class start conducting their own raids on the past
to suit their own intellectual & emotional needs is the day this rotten
system will be brought down.

comradely

Gary



On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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> The fucking idiot who wrote this article is, naturally enough, teach
> history at Bard College.
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/opinion/was-lenin-a-german-agent.html
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[Marxism] thoughts on the UK Crisis

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Not since the beginnings of the Arab Spring have I felt such excitement in
the air.  I am at the other side of the world from the events that will
determine the future of our world.  But still I feel it.  Something is
afoot, something slouches towards Bethlehem to be born. The UK Spring is
beginning.


I read the Guardian and follow the links put up on Lou’s list. My other
source of information Novara Media and Twitter.  Say what you like about
this as a medium, for all its limitations it comes into its own at the time
of process, at the time of change. For analysis it is useless,  but for
revealing the existence of the not-yet, Twitter is unrivaled.


To my core now I am a Bhaskarian and so I am not enthralled to what is
actual or empirical.  Always the thought of the realm of the reality of the
underlying tendencies and mechanisms that may or may not manifest
themselves dominates my approach.

Of course that allied to my drive towards a Utopian world means I can be
wildly wrong.  Prediction is impossible in the human sciences and the open
world they address. But there is no gainsaying that a crisis is unfolding
in the UK.  We are very close I believe to a realization among the
intelligent few among the bourgeoisie that Corbyn represents something like
a last chance for them.


I say that as an admirer of Corbyn, but also from the conviction that he is
no revolutionary. Only from the pinnacle of the excesses of Neoliberal
ideology can he appear to be an extremist.  I have tweeted that May
survives because of the phenomenon of *Aprѐs moi la deluge*.  Seymour is
his speech to the Downing Street Rally says she survives because of
bourgeois terror at the prospect of a Corbyn government. He is right, I
think, but I am beginning to believe that there are glimpses of an even
more terrifying future for the bourgeoisie, a future not of the Keynesian
accommodation that Corbyn offers but a future of Red Appropriation.

In his great book  *Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian thought*,
Michael Lowy quotes a very interesting passage from Lukacs’ *History and
class consciousness*.‘  It deals with the impact of the confinement of time
under Capitalism. It goes


‘Thus times sheds its qualitative, variable, flowing nature; it freezes
into an exactly delimited, quantifiable continuum filled with quantifiable
‘things’ …in short it becomes a space.’


What we are seeing in the UK is the restoration of the flowing nature of
time. New waters are forever closing about us and it is impossible to step
into the same river twice, that is, to restore the status quo.

The Sunday Times has said that May has been given 10 days.  To do what I
have no idea. Nor, more to the point, does she.  I do though believe that
these could be the ten days that will shake the world.



comradely


Gary


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[Marxism] Crisis in Disunited Kingdom

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The horror of the Grenfell Fire where the aesthetic needs of the rich were
put before the safety of the poor marks, I think, a serious moment in the
decay of the ruling Tory Party in Britain. The truth is that the tower of
flats housing the poor was covered up with cheap cladding to protect the
property values in the rich neighborhood.

The Tory Prime Minister, known as Maybot, is totally incapable of even
feigning a humane response. She is for fox hunting, ivory trading and
grammar schools but not for meeting people. She seems without the capacity
to make a cliche sound sincere and surely that is a fatal weakness for a
politician.

One can imagine what Bill Clinton would have done here. Clinton could do
empathy endlessly and effortlessly and totally insincerely.

May has only her posh accent and that does not cut it in this case. She
survives for the moment though she is universally hated within and without
her party. Tories know that if she goes now then the whole rotten edifice
of Toryism would collapse.

Are we on the threshold of a systemic crisis in England?  Could this be the
European Spring that I have dreamed off for decades and decades?  Are the
poor about to rise up?

I can almost hear Richard Seymour shaking his head and saying we must be
sober and serious, but the questions do not appear so mad even if the Tory
Government can survive.

comradely

Gary


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Why Don't the Poor Rise Up? | AK Press

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Well I just finished my morning trawl though twitter -Arron Bastani, James
Butler, Richard Seymour, Owen Jones, Paul Mason and George Galloway. that
has taken me to #Grenfell and a series of small film -two by ChunkyMark on
youtube.  the latter go to the heart of Lou's question.  Outside the
streets where the fire took place people have brought thousands of gifts.
They move around and talk without leaders and without prompting. It is in
effect a people's parliament. If one listens carefully, I would suggest,
tentatively,  that Lou's question should be re-framed to - Why haven't the
poor risen up yet?

We are in an interregnum - that is a period between centres.  The old
neoliberal centre is decaying, possibly dead, and a new centre is trying to
be born. Centres constitute what is thought to be common sense. The absence
of a dominant commons sense mean that all sorts of surreal phenomena
manifest themselves. The deal with the Ulster Strasserites that is supposed
to guarantee a continuation of the Tories in office is just one of these.
The Tories have once more played the Orange card and they have done it with
their customary recklessness as to the consequences for Ireland. And those
consequences are likely to be very immediate with the Loyalist Marching
Season upon us. the slightest sign that the British state is tilting
towards restoring Orange Dominance will be met with resistance on the
streets.  Sinn Fein will be unable to keep control here.

Then there is the plain fact that the Tories have no idea on how to
proceed. May's favorite projects - fox-hunting, ivory trading and grammar
schools do not address in any way the multiple problems that have
accumulated under neoliberalism.  She personally now is manifestly a
problem.  She visited the fire scene but did not talk to the residents.
Corbyn went there and talked to them.  Interestingly the residents are
obsessed with the concept of truth.  Repeatedly they say they want the
truth to come out.  Thankfully they have been isolated from academic
bullshit and so no one has told them that we live in post-truth world.
Instead they feel instinctively the truth will set them free.

That is making them bump up against the edge of the question Why don't the
poor rise up? My gut feeling is that the question is about to become
irrelevant, as the poor do in fact rise up.

comradely

Garfy

On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 1:47 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> A good question? Or not?
>
> https://www.akpress.org/why-don-t-the-poor-rise-up.html
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[Marxism] The British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I am not sure if I have posted the link to this video by ChunkyMark on the
"Magic Money tree" (performance artist Mark McGowan) but if you have not
watched it, do yourself a treat and open and enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxM0swbuxQo

If ever a video deserved viral status this is it.

So what happens now? There has been a tremendous surge into the Labour
Party since the election.  Membership is now up to 800,000 making it the
largest social Democratic Party in Europe (the world?).

The right wing inside the Labour party has had a serious rebuff. Some will
do a Vicar of Bray thing and become born again Corbynites.  Others will
bide their time to re-emerge and do a nasty bit of back stabbing. A Corbyn
government will be a crisis government - like Maduro's or even Allende's
and, in that context, eventually the Blairites will re-emerge.  Have no
doubts on that score. Capitalism will not be coaxed out of neo-liberalism
and appeals to democracy matter nothing to capitalists. Labour "moderates"
and Blairites will come again to sabotage the movement of the Left.,

But for the first time since the disastrous first months of the Harold
Wilson government, when as Roy Bhaskar pointed out a stubborn reluctance to
devalue the pound destroyed the momentum of the Left, we have hope.

One of the problems for the Capitalists is that they threw all they had at
Corbyn in their media and now their guns have fallen into a sullen silence.
Murdoch, Dacre and the ex KGB thug, who owns the Independent, have played
all their cards and it has not worked.  The social media was full
apparently of novel ways to burn the Sun.  But capitalists have other
weapons and they will be rolled out in due time.

Nonetheless, this is a time of hope and we should celebrate that, in a
serious and sober way of course as Young Seymour pointed out.

Comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] The British Election

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I think I will recall for the rest of my days, the morning I booted up the
computer and tuned into Novara Media's live streaming on the British
election.  It was about 5.30 here in Elcho Island. We had the solemn David
Dimblebly face look at Big Ben as it ticked towards when they could release
the exit poll result.  And there it was - a hung parliament.   All hell
broke loose on the Novara set. And I did a rather stiff jig myself around
the computer. Not too shabby for a 75 year old I like to think.
So what now?  Richard Seymour has an excellent piece on the TLS site and I
have nothing to add to that.

But I will say, that I think what happened in Britain will have a
radicalising effect on the Labor Party here in Australia.  It is just
beginning to dawn on the right wing of the social democratic parties that
they are the ones who are unelectable. They have not all got there yet, but
opportunists as they are they will tag along eventually for the salaries.
Blairism is Dead and Satan's Big Helper Lord Mandelsohn will now plot in a
vacuum.  Even the moderates will not be listening.

So it is the good news.   But Michael Roberts'  latest blog is a well timed
reminder. The struggle to get rid of capitalism (not only in its neoliberal
manifestations) will not be an easy one.

Bur for the moment rejoice. Neoliberalism is dying in the night. Ring out
will bells and let it die.

comradely

Gary


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[Marxism] my tweet exchange on the British election on the necessity of hope

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My exchanges with Richard Seymour continue.  He has replied twice now.  I
am still very chuffed about that. We can all do with an ego rush now and
then and being engaged in debate by one of the contemporary greats on the
Left has me grinning with delight.

I cannot though get into the tweets what needs to be said.  It is not that
kind of medium.  But what is at issue is the notion of concrete utopianism.
I follow Bhaskar here.  He always used "concrete" before Utopian to
distinguish his ideas from compensatory utopian fantasies.  Like Fourier's
notion of the sea turning into lemonade. For Bhaskar "concrete" meant that
there had to be real possibilities in process. Sea is never going to turn
into lemonade. It is never a real possibility in process. (Though Bhaskar
did in a brief remark acknowledge the positive role of fantasy in utopian
imagining).

Now what I think is that it is indeed concrete utopian to dream of a Labour
victory.  I will have no talk of pessimism. For Richard that would appear
to mean that I am burying my head in the sand.  We tweeted



*Me: I spent yrs in ISO. I 2 no the pseudo Leninist b/shit. But Traverso
says we've a generation without a Utopia on the horizon i.e. sans hope.*

*Richard: We're not gonna develop new utopias by burying our heads in the
sand about the state of the real world todayMe: Love ur work Richard. Love
ur books. Even love u. BUT pessimism=low turn out. Tory win. Optimism=high
turn out. Labour win. 4 me that's it*

I work in very remote Indigenous communities and there is no head in the
sand.  I have seen people choking under despair and my task is to bring
hope. I approach the task with the Bhaskarian conviction that the actuality
of what I see does not encompass all the reality. There are underlying
mechanisms especially the urge to absent the constraints on the ills or
absences that afflict the lives of Indigenous people.  The pulse to freedom
is strong everywhere and I seek to assist its triggering.  I cannot do that
with pessimism.

But to return to the UK electoral context.  The Tory project is in trouble
because neoliberalism is in trouble.  They have also campaigned badly.  I
have reconstructed what I think lead to the disastrous decision to call an
early election.

First observation: The parliamentary Labour Party had settled on the
strategy of driving down the Party's poll numbers to pile so much pressure
on Corbyn that his supporters would peel off.  It already worked with Owen
Jones apparently.  They got the Party down to a disastrous 24%. The
traitors reasoned that Corbyn could not take three more years of this.

Guess:  The Tories looked at the numbers and thought Xmas had come.  A snap
election would wipe out Labour. May calls election.

Mistake: Poll numbers do not necessarily reflect all of the underlying
tendencies. E.g. Corbyn's enemies inside the Party became muted or muzzled.
Continued criticism during election would be seen as overt treachery. 2nd
Corbyn is most effective away from Westminster.  Out in the streets is his
milieu. It makes him look responsive.  Moreover, Corbyn's supporters in the
part , all 500k of them suddenly had something to do - get out there and
campaign. They love doing that. They are good at it. Oops

Tendencies: Discontent is very real and widespread but in the absence of
hope it has fed into despair and apathy. Also the National Executive of the
Labour Party let Corbyn have his left wing manifesto around social welfare,
abolition of student fees, minimum wage and re-nationalizing water, rail,
and power etc.  This was the most radical manifesto since 1945. I think
they did it to exorcise the "poison" of Corbyn's leftism.

Mistake: National Executive miscalculated as manifesto proved popular.
Labour found itself on the moral high ground and it surged in polls - Oops!

Mistake: Tories under Crosby decided to campaign depicting Corbyn as
anti-Christ.  That made him like Shelley's Lucifer.  He became
interesting.  God ,as Shelley pointed out, is boring. Corbyn became the
bearer of negation.  Suddenly, all those who counter-identified with the
system had a pole of attraction. The counter identifiers, the primitive
rebels, were driven into the camp of the dis-identifiers.

Mistake: Tories decided not to do debates with Corbyn as this would boost
him.  The line then emerged that May had run away or did not care.  The
election became about her being missing in action.

Mistake: As her leadership came under question May resorted to talking
about her "team" She sent members of her team to debates and that made her
look even weaker. She keeps saying she is being "responsible" but the
public want responsiveness. O

[Marxism] my tweet

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Richard Seymour replied to my tweet.  I was over the moon.  Though of
course he disagreed. I replied but did not have the space to say that I
know where he is coming from in his condemnation of false "hope". After all
I too was subjected to the ISO bullshit. Here is the exchange so far

I wrote: @leninology

For crissakes, Richard wake up to yourself. What makes you think we need
pessimism in this conjuncture? We need hope


He wrote: GMacL114

We've had decades of bad, ill-grounded, stupid "hope" leading to
demoralisation; we need sobriety and seriousness, and yearning

I suppose I have to enter a plea of guilty when it comes to a lack of
sobriety.  But I have always been serious in an Irish sort of way.

comradely

Gary





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[Marxism] hope

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I have just had a go at Richard Seymour via twitter.  A mild go, but as a
disciple of his I did not do it lightly.  He posted some stuff about a
pessimistic reading of what is happening in the UK.  I just do not
understand why Richard thinks we need pessimism at this time.  What would
make him think we are in danger from being hopeful, never mind optimistic?

Seriously now there is a shift underway in the UK.  I can feel it from
here.  The conservative campaign has been badly conceived.  Recall how
Hannah Arendt scripted Eichmann in Jerusalem.  She decided  she was not
going to depict him as Lucifer, but as a boring little fart of a clerk -
the banality of evil.  She did not want him to be the Romantic hero from
the Dark Side.

Crosby, who directs the Tory campaign, has miscalculated.  He decided to
depict Corbyn as the Anti-Christ, Lucifer.

Forgetting that that means Corbyn becomes the bearer of negation and
negation is hope in these times when we are without a Utopia on the
horizon. That is why the working class are singing Corbyn's name at rallies.

For the first time in a generation a new element has entered the Lists and
that is Hope.   And it is providing the most intoxicating of spectacles.

The cascade of imitation is in process and it will sweep the Tory Filth out
of office.

comradely

Gary


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[Marxism] The British Election

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It is foolish to believe the polls too much in a first past the post
context such as the UK, but as the gap between the Labour Party and the
Tories seems to narrow dramatically it is hard to resist the delirium.

My sources are Aaron Bastani on twitter as listers would know and the group
that he is linked to George Galloway, Richard Seymour, James Butler, & Owen
Jones.  My absolute joy though is to tune into the Artist Taxi Driver
youtube channel (Chunky Mark) and listen to his latest rant.

The accent is strongly London and that might cause difficulties but stay
with him and just go with the passion. The link is athttps://
www.youtube.com/user/chunkymark.

The big question now is can Corbyn do it?  Can he win?  Personally I doubt
it but i am very aware that just a few weeks ago the question was "Can
Corbyn prevent a Tory landslide that would wipe out Labour?"

The Tories have campaigned badly, like really badly.  They also have a deep
structural problem, that has been partly obscured by the Brexit from the
EU. The Tory project is in trouble. "Neoliberalism is dying in the night.
ring out wild bells and let it die" I say and millions are beginning to say
the same thing.

Also in trouble are the Labour Moderates - those 200 odd ass wipes who
opposed Corbyn with maximum treachery.  They allowed Corbyn to have a left
wing manifesto in order, I think, to exorcise finally the "poison" of
leftism. *BUT* the manifesto proved popular.  And now there seems no way
back to Blairism and New Labour.

Delightful times

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] the British Election

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Last week I did a talk on Corbynism for the local Socialist Alliance.  I
channeled Richard Seymour without the Lacan bit and the accompanying Dark
Side Dreaming.  My take on things is that we are far from being in danger
of excessive optimism. Rather we need to fight the absence of Utopian
Dreaming.

But the stark actualities of British politics are formidable obstacles to
hope.  Faced with the polls which showed Labour on 24% and the Tories on
49%,  I regressed to the age old Irish practice of whingeing about the
Sasanach.  I just cannot get my mind around how people could not vote for
Corbyn's offer. His endeavor to recreate a Keynesian Centre to replace the
Neoliberal Centre is just too good to refuse, given the crisis of
neoliberalism.

But now there is a poll which has Labour on 38% and the Tories on 43%.  The
Tory Manifesto was deeply unpopular especially the proposal to seize the
family home of those who had dementia after they died. Even the sickening
horror of the Manchester bombing seems not to have helped the Tories as
attention has been drawn to the fact they were responsible for cutting the
police force by 19,000.

Richard Seymour dissected this very well and managed to deflate my euphoria
which had me "muttering like a fool".

But he still says it is significant.  Corbynism might survive this election
even if Labour do not win.  By Corbynism I mean the attempt to move a large
social democratic party back to the Keynesian Centre.  The political editor
of the New Statesman even speculated in a tweet that Milliband would have
done better in 2015 with Corbyn's program.  The right wing splitter Polly
Toynbee also wrote in the Guardian that she loved the manifesto but thought
that the fact that  Corbyn was Labour Leader would prevent people from
voting for it.

Of course without Corbyn there would have been no Keynesian manifesto. That
is a point which the likes of Eaton and Toynbee would never admit.
Nonetheless, the fact that the manifesto was popular, shows that the
struggle to move Labour away from Blair's pro neoliberal stance is making
ground.

But I long for more than all this - absolutely. I want a world where to
slightest sign of neoliberalism dare not even raise its head.  Still, I
will take a Corbyn victory and the fact that throughout this campaign
Labour have been gaining steadily is rekindling my dreams of a better world.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Beyond Neoliberal Identity Politics

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Thank you Jeff,

I secretly think it is the best but I actually wrote the best I had read.
The link is

MacLennan, G. (1997). Political Correctness (and Courtesy) in Australia. *The
Monthly Review, 48*(11), 33-43.

comradely

Gary

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On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 10:38 AM, Jeff via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *************
>
> On 2017-05-25 01:25, Gary MacLennan via Marxism wrote:
>
>
>> I wrote an article for Monthly Review long years ago on Political
>> Correctness.  In all (im)modesty it remains the best thing I have read on
>> the subject.
>>
>
> Let's see. If it's the best text on a subject, then isn't it your duty to
> pass on a link? :-)
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Pope’s Gifts to Trump Send Some Clear Messages - The New York Times

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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What are the odds that Trump will read the essay/encyclical?

comradely

Gary

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 9:15 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
>
> But there appeared to be a message in the gifts the pope gave to his
> guest. They included a copy of his influential essay on the importance of
> saving the environment, a rebuke to the climate change skepticism espoused
> by Mr. Trump. Francis also presented him with a medallion engraved with the
> image of an olive tree — “a symbol of peace,” he explained.
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/world/europe/pope-trump-v
> atican-meet.html
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Re: [Marxism] Beyond Neoliberal Identity Politics

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Jeff

I wrote an article for Monthly Review long years ago on Political
Correctness.  In all (im)modesty it remains the best thing I have read on
the subject.

The point I made was that in all societies there is always restraints on
language use i.e. political correctness. Of course the restrictions desired
by the marginal are marked or labelled, while the restrictions desired by
the powerful are unmarked and labeled normal. they do not even have a name.

Exactly the same with identity politics.  We are all thrown into an
identity when we are born. The question is do we reproduce it or transform
it.  transformation requires a movement and that disturbs dominant
identities - think 2, 4,. 6. 8; Gay is just as good as Straight.

Now the question of a neoliberal identity is an interesting one.
Foucault's lectures at La College de France (much quoted by Richard
Seymour) contain the outline of a neoliberal identity.  That is the classic
identity of the possessive individual that MacPherson wrote about.  So that
is the neoliberal identity proper.  neoliberalism seeks to create the
neoliberal subject or identity.

I would distinguish that process from those compensatory identities that
neoliberals offer.  Marriage equality, abstract rights etc  Under the reign
of scarcity, which is the principal motif of neoliberalism, compensatory
identities cause misrecognition and envy.  They divide us and of course
that is all to the benefit of the powerful.

For me the ideal program would not be to deny the reality of identity
politics, but firstly to attack the neoliberal identity and transform the
compensatory identities by eliminating scarcity.

comradely

Gary



On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 3:59 AM, Jeff via Marxism <
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> *
>
> On 2017-05-24 18:02, Glenn Kissack via Marxism wrote:
>
>> http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/24/beyond-neoliberal-ide
>> ntity-politics/
>>
>
>
> This is a disgusting attack on what is absolutely a straw man.
>
> Ever since I have heard the term thrown around, I've been looking for what
> "identity politics" means in practice. Surely an ideology that is so talked
> about must have some actual proponents that will lay it out for us!
>
> But no. I am finally realizing that "identity politics" is a label similar
> to "political correctness." The latter expression has long been used to
> decry progressive norms in relation to use of bigoted terms and their
> underlying ideas. It was always denounced by the bigoted right wing as a
> form of thought control supposedly being imposed by the left, yet never
> would they bother (nor could they!) point to an actual ideology called
> "political correctness." The charge was vacuous and only revealed the guilt
> of those making the charge.
>
> Now I see that "identity politics" has become a new label of exactly the
> same sort. This is clear from the above article attacking it. It makes a
> few dozen claims in which the position attributed to "identity politics" is
> indirectly quoted. You'd think that if there were any substance to these
> supposed quotations then the author might try quoting some actual people
> with those views. But no, those views are presented as those of "NIP", the
> term coined by the author to mean "neoliberal identity politics" as if it
> were real. So it's an attack on no one and on nothing in the real world.
> But by attacking it, one achieves the same filthy result as the incessant
> attacks on "political correctness" of yesteryear.
>
> - Jeff
>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Nearly half of U.S. voters support Trump impeachment, poll shows - NY Daily News

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I too have thought that this is important.  The headlines say his
popularity is diving but it is still around 36%.  That may be a record low
for a POTUS starting out, but it is still a hell of a lot of people.


It is difficult to pick what will happen. I am still inclined to think that
the republican and Democratic establishments just want to corral/tame Trump
but he keeps slipping the noose.

May have to be impeached but my *guess* remains that there is no appetite
for that at all in either of the major parties.

The Michael Moore doco might change that.

comradely

Gary


On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 4:08 AM, Steven L. Robinson via Marxism <
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>
>
>
> The 42% approval rating cited in the article is generally consistent with
> the level of support Trump received throughout much of last year's
> campaign, so it is quite evident that his support is not cratering. At
> least not yet. SR
>
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[Marxism] The Comey "thang"

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This is big news here in Oz.  I have told everyone who will listen (a
rapidly diminishing number!) that the Democrats are trapped by all this.
They are (very) reluctant  to be impeachers.  I think they would much
rather hope in Obama's words, that Trump "succeeds because then America
succeeds".

But the Democrats' room to maneuver is narrowing all the time. Trump was
astonished they objected to the firing of Comey. Now that is stupid. The
Democrats had no choice. They had to pretend to be an opposition.

Will anyone on the list comment on whether they think I have got this right?

ae

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Russia/Trump

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Am I wrong in thinking that something like Karma or fate is closing around
Trump?  I think the Democrats are actually reluctant to challenge him but
events would seem to be getting out of control.  Lou's remarks about the
consequences of fucking with the CIA and the FBI are right on the money.
Comey is now outside the tent and he is clearly pissing in. CNN and the NYT
are at it too.

I don't think it is coordinated in any way, but it seems to me from this
distance that the flow of urine aimed at the White House could turn into a
tsunami that will sweep the Trump Administration away. Now wouldn't that be
an ironic fate for Old Pee Pee?

comradely

Gary


On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:32 AM, Thomas via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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> *
>
> The explanation below assumes Trump is capable of organized thought.
>
> T
>
>
> -Original Message-
> >From: Anthony Boynton via Marxism 
> >Sent: May 15, 2017 11:42 PM
> >To: Thomas F Barton 
> >Subject: [Marxism] Russia/Trump
> >
> >  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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> >*
> >
> >*Reading the tea leaves*
> >
> >
> >This list has a tea leaf reading session going on about why FBI Director
> >Comey was fired by President Donald Trump.
> >
> >
> >After stirring them again, and examining them under a magnifying glass, I
> >have come up with the following reasoning.
> >
> >First of all Donald Trump is in deep trouble over the issue of Russia.
> It’s
> >not just the Democrats who have an anti-Russia program, it is the
> >“internationalist” Republicans of the John McCain ilk. In fact, there is
> >little evidence that any significant sector of the Republican party
> >supports Trump’s Russian turn.
> >
> >
> >The Russian intervention into the elections was not an invention of
> >hysterical Democrats or of the New York Times. Cyber-warfare has been
> going
> >on world-wide for some time among businesses and states. The North Korean
> >cyber-attack against the Sony Films picture *The Interview *may have been
> >the funniest moment, but there have been plenty of serious moments
> >including the very recent attack against hospitals in the UK. In any case,
> >Trump’s infatuation with Vladimir Putin and Putin’s support for Trump were
> >both on the record in the media of the world. Why wouldn’t Putin try to
> >help Trump? He would have been an idiot not to.
> >
> >
> >The Russian state remains a competitor to the American state in
> >geopolitics. It has the only nuclear arsenal that can compete with that of
> >the USA, and it is aggressively countering US/NATO pressure on it: most
> >notably by its land grab in the Ukraine and its genocidal role in Syria.
> >
> >
> >Although both US and Russian imperialism are counter-revolutionary through
> >and through, that does not mean that their geopolitical interests are
> >identical. The French and German empires of 1914 were thoroughly
> >counterrevolutionary, but their geopolitical interests clashed.
> >
> >
> >What interests are at stake?
> >
> >
> >First of all client states. Every client state an imperial power has is a
> >client! Who buys arms from the biggest arms merchant in the world? (that
> >would be the USA) It’s client states!
> >
> >
> >Who buys arms from the Russians? Not too many client states these days,
> but
> >the market of the old Soviet Union is still holding up. Oh, and then there
> >is Syria.
> >
> >
> >Nevertheless, a significant sector of big US corporations are heavily
> >invested in Russia, and the GOP is still the party of business despite the
> >Clinton’s efforts to bring them all into the Democratic party family.
> >Corporations heavily invested in Russia include not only Mr. Tillerson’s
> >alma mater Exxon, but Boeing, Pepsi, Ford, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's,
> >Mondelez International, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Cargill, Alcoa,
> >General Electric, and Morgan Stanley.
> >
> >
> >They would like to have their cake and eat it, too. Keep the geopolitical
> >power of the United States, diminish Russian power still further, but get
> >rid of the sanctions against Russi

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Comeytose in Washington

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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This was so wonderfully full of acerbic wit.  A delight to read and a tonic
for the weary traveler.  Well done Jeffrey. Now I am inclined to agree with
Mark in all this. The trouble is that we do not attribute enough power to
STUPIDITY when we are reconstructing the motives of people like Trump.

His problem is that he was born into wealth.  A master surrounded by slaves
created by his father.  The task of the slave is ever to kiss ass and to
protect the master from ever finding out what the real world is about. The
slaves around Trump have done an admirable job.

Now though he has got to the level where there is no hiding place.  True,
there are still ranks upon ranks of ass kissers everywhere, but every so
often the realization that the Administrative system does have its own
special rules and the sad truth slowly emerges that one cannot always shit
on the carpet and get away with it.

It will take a socialist revolution of immense dimensions to clean out the
Augean Stables of the American State, but in the mean time we can have a
quiet smirk as the System slowly, timidly, and oh so relutcantly but
inevitably girds its loins to tell the POTUS "You're fired".

comradely

Gary


On Fri, May 12, 2017 at 10:51 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> The blending of hubris and stupidity on display in the Comey affair is a
> recipe for political comedy and legal disaster. By concocting a false story
> for Comey’s expulsion, the Trump team, including the President and the
> Attorney General, have exposed their consciousness of guilt and laid the
> groundwork for charges of obstruction of justice against them. If there’s
> anyone left in the Justice Department or the Congress with the guts to
> bring it. Perhaps Ralph Nader will sue, as he did in 1973, when he won a
> seminal verdict in federal court that Nixon’s firing of special prosecutor
> Archibald Cox was illegal.
>
> full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/12/comeytose-in-washington/
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[Marxism] The firing of Comey

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Here in Australia the sacking of Comey is being portrayed as a serious
crisis for the Trump administration.  I can only hope so. Personally, I
recall a post by Lou which talked about the price to be paid for taking on
the CIA. I won't use the expression "Deep State" but the security apparatus
cannot be happy with Trump's actions.  I hope Mark is right and this is the
start of the unraveling of the Trump Joke.

Trump is so lacking in gravitas and the idiots gave him control of the
nuclear codes. Does not bear thinking about just how criminally
irresponsible the American ruling class is.

comradely

Gary.
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Re: [Marxism] Orwell-bad history?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Agreed totally, Andrew. Orwell is a very mixed figure.  But Homage to
Catalonia does have its moment of seeing that the spontaneous right thing
to do is to join the revolution.  I like Raymond Williams' book on Orwell
2nd edition btw especially re Orwell's attitude towards the poor and the
character called "Orwell" that he created in his work

comradely

Gary

On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 4:29 AM, Andrew Stewart via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> Yeah but Orwell didn't give a damn about the colonial question. His
> activities after the events in Spain were boot-licking exercises in the
> service of the British Empire. When he named names for the intelligence
> services he explicitly said that Paul Robeson and Henry Wallace were
> "anti-white", a pretty obvious premonition of the notion of "reverse
> racism". Whether the Popular Front period had more losses than gains for
> the Communist parties worldwide is a debate that has to be totally removed
> from Orwell's explicitly racist, sexist, homophobic, and imperialist
> criticism of it that portrays itself as a left critique. It's not an
> accident that the Cold War liberal Lionel Trilling wrote an introduction to
> the book in 1952.
>
> =
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 7 May 2017 16:58:17 +1000
> From: Gary MacLennan 
> To: Gregory Adler , Activists and scholars in
> Marxist tradition 
> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Orwell-bad history?
> Message-ID:
>  gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Agreed Gregory.  I read a piece by Chomsky long ago which made the point
> that the suppression of the revolutionary impulse was the problem.  The
> Republican government for example failed to declare an end to colonialism
> and thus gifted Franco with Moorish troops.
>
> comradely
>
> Gary
>
> On Sun, May 7, 2017 at 4:31 PM, Gregory Adler via Marxism <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> >   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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> > *
> >
> > This is a succinct view of the anti-Orwell position on the Civil War and
> > the suppression of the revolutionary forces. Although I am far less
> > attracted overall to Orwell than some on this list in this matter I think
> > he was on the side of the angels.
> >
> > https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/06/george-
> > orwell-homage-to-catalonia-account-spanish-civil-war-wrong
> > _
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> >
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Andrew Stewart
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[Marxism] Just a thought from Darwin (the Place!)

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Just  read this headline in the Guardian

*"Pulitzer-winning author David J Garrow, facing criticism from colleagues,
says Obama is a changed man who has embraced celebrities and ‘big money’"*

Gosh oh Gosh who would have thunk it?

comradely


Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Orwell-bad history?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Agreed Gregory.  I read a piece by Chomsky long ago which made the point
that the suppression of the revolutionary impulse was the problem.  The
Republican government for example failed to declare an end to colonialism
and thus gifted Franco with Moorish troops.

comradely

Gary

On Sun, May 7, 2017 at 4:31 PM, Gregory Adler via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> This is a succinct view of the anti-Orwell position on the Civil War and
> the suppression of the revolutionary forces. Although I am far less
> attracted overall to Orwell than some on this list in this matter I think
> he was on the side of the angels.
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/06/george-
> orwell-homage-to-catalonia-account-spanish-civil-war-wrong
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[Marxism] thoughts occasioned by a Twitter trawl

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I have just finished my morning's trawl though Twitterdom and discovered
that the English local election results are depressing. On twitter I do
Aaron Bastani and James Butler from Novara Media. Paul Mason, and Richard
Seymour, Eoin Clarke, and George Galloway. I occasionally look up  George
Eaton but his Blairism irritates me beyond measure. I used to do Owen Jones
but he sold out on Corbyn and I have no time for traitors.

I have not totally in thrall to Twitterdom for I am also reading Michael
Lowy on Jewish Libertarian thinkers and Enzo Traverso's book on Left wing
melancholia and mining Bloch's *Principle of Hope*.

Richard Seymour is a titanic intellectual. I have no doubt about that.  But
his pessimism leaves me breathless with despair.  His site has a picture of
the meltdown in the Arctic and the caption -


*"I'm just pointing out, as gently as I can, that we've missed our shot.
The world is dying"*

Thank you Richard!

I tweeted him to take down that picture in the name of Jayzuss. But he
ignored me, of course.

I am due to give a talk on British Politics to a handful of young
revolutionaries.  I will try to be realistic but what is more important it
is vital to keep alive the spark of hope for a better world.  I am
convinced or partly convinced that somewhere soon there will be a break
through.  Yet, the Arab Revolution has been drowned in blood. Sanders and
Corbyn have been surrounded and contained. Trump is in the White House.
That piece of filth, Vladimir Putin is ensconced in the Kremlin. May will
continue to be in No 10 and in all likelihood the odious Macron will be
residing in the Élysée Palace. I won't mention China. Its leadership is too
low even to curse.

But still surely that cannot be our future.  I am much attracted to the
Messianic thinking of Buber, Rosenzweig and Benjamin. Both  Benjamin wrote
of the future not as 'a homogeneous and empty time... For in it every
second was the narrow gate, through which the Messiah could enter'.
Rosenzweig talked of the 'greet deeds of liberation' as in indispensable
preconditions' for the advent of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God.

For me, naturally, the socialist revolution is the equivalent of the
Kingdom of God on earth.  I will have no personal truck with god bothering
but am sympathetic to radicals who do. But my faith and it is faith in a
possible future break in the status quo brings to mind Trotsky's testament
where he writes "My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less
ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth."

That is possibly the best antidote to the current state of affairs revealed
by my morning visit to Twitterdom

comradely


Gary
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Re: [Marxism] ‘I can’t lose my house’: Outrage after Flint sends foreclosure warnings over tainted-water bills - The Washington Post

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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"We are working to see if any changes or something can be done"-the Mayor.

How nice of her!  Meanwhile the residents should be thinking seriously of
revolting.

comradely

Gary

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 12:51 AM, Richard Sprout via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/
> wp/2017/05/04/the-latest-in-flints-water-crisis-pay-for-
> it-or-lose-your-home/?utm_term=.aab118a1cffc
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
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Re: [Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Re: Fwd: Neofascism in the White House? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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This is a brilliant piece. I accept his argument (& Lou's) that calling
Trump a fascist can actually get us to ignore the real problem or to look
in the wrong direction.

Quite clearly we are not dealing with a fascist regime in the USA. Though,
I doubt not that at least some of the Trump- team would not have stood out
in the crowd at Nuremberg.

Still,I have to confess to almightygodsohelpmemaryevervirgin and plead
guilty to calling Trump a fascist as a term of abuse. I will desist in
future.

comradely

Gary


On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 3:01 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> A comment from the always interesting Farans Kalosar:
>
> Gleichschaltung has to be understood as the second phase of a two-step
> Nazification process, the first stage being the machetergreifung or
> machtuebernahme, the capture or takeover of power.
>
> The sequence of events in culminating with Hitler's appointment as
> Chancellor on January 30, 1933 was the first stage. What led up to that was
> a complex series of opportunistic maneuvers within the legal limitations of
> the Weimar constitution, which amounted to a hollowing out or
> neutralization from within of the rules and rituals of bourgeois
> parliamentary government. This was accompanied by a buildup of coercive
> forces under the banner of the Party and the expansion of military-style
> organization to every corner and aspect of life in the Reich.
>
> Despite a long history of preparation for power, the bringing into line of
> the German state and people through an aggressive program of organization,
> regimentation, and legal repression can be seen as beginning in earnest
> with the Enabling Act of March 28, 1933, which established the formal
> dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. This process of organization and
> reorganization would continue for twelve years and would involve a
> continuous doubling down on the most extreme outrageous positions and
> practices of the Nazis, leading eventually to the Final Solution and the
> total defeat of the German armed forces in 1945.
>
> You could allege that the current regime in Washington completed the
> seizure of power in January 2017 and that the bringing into line is now
> under way. But in fact, there are few signs of anything really analogous to
> the rise to and consolidation of power by Hitler.
>
> Where the Nazis--while defiantly incoherent intellectually--were utterly
> on point when it came to organization (albeit with a multitude of mutually
> hostile fiefdoms), Donald Trump is chaotic and almost deliberately
> inconsistent. Indeed, Trump appears to be making no more practical use of
> his majorities in congress than Barack Obama did when first elected.
>
> Where everything in the Nazi state aimed to mobilize the German masses
> toward the goals of the State, Trumpism seeks to put the masses to sleep.
>
> The message from the chaotic and wildly undisciplined Trump isn't "join us
> and we will conquer the world." It's "Relax: you've elected the right guy
> and he will take care of everything." Trump's icons are the wildly
> eccentric and unclubbable Kid Rock and Alex Jones, not Himmler or Goebbels.
> He has no SS, no SA, and his rallies--so far--are merely intended to
> stimulate passive approval of his actions and improve his standing in the
> polls. His White House is a chaos of impulsive appointments and firings
> where the only consistency is supplied by the members of Trump's own family.
>
> Indeed, Trump appears bewildered by the very powerful authoritarian
> machinery bequeathed to every American president since Roosevelt, and even
> to be at war with such nominal icons of U.S. fascism as the FBI and the
> CIA. While he has appointed a disingenuous right-wing fanatic to the
> Supreme Court, and an out-and-out Ku Kluxer as head of the Department of
> Justice, the much-bruited total reorganization of the federal government
> has yet to begin in earnest and may never happen.
>
> Furthermore, enormous rallies like the Women's March and last week's
> significant Peoples' Climate march take place with hundreds of thousands of
> demonstrators cursing the name of Trump--while White House staffers gather
> in the open door of the mansion and look on--and yet nothing happens to the
> protesters apart from a few right-wingers calling them "morons."
>
>

[Marxism] The French elections

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I am beginning to get a bad feeling about the outcome of the French
Presidential elections.  The Establishment is congratulating itself on
having organized a run off between Le Pen and Macron on the assumption that
the Left will have no choice but to vote for Macron. Is this a re-run of
the Democratic Party's deep idiocy at being over joyed with the selection
of Trump as the Republican candidate?  The Democrats saw off Sanders and
convinced themselves that no one could possibly support Trump.  Well the
rest is history.

Personally, I am revolted by both of the French Presidential candidates,
just as I was with the American scenario, but of course I do not have to
vote in either case. In 2002, Chirac defeated Papa Pen in a massive
landslide (82.2% of the vote), because the Left voted fro him to keep the
Fascists at bay.  I doubt that Macron will be able to repeat that
performance.  That is because Marine Le Pen, unlike her father, has
embraced Strasserism and promised the workers relief from neoliberalism.
Exactly as Steve Bannon got Trump. to do.

The Despicable Macron, very much like the Despicable Clinton, is offering
the working class continuity, that is, more of the same.  Le Pen is
offering a rupture and it might just be that that is enough for the
desperate denizens of Precaria

comradely


Gary
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[Marxism] Oh to be in England now that April's there...

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I woke up this morning in a good mood.  Late last night I had talked myself
into the strong(ish) belief that the English would come to their senses and
that there would be a swing to Labour in the polls.

Then the reality of the polls struck.  There has been a large swing to the
Tories.  Alas, alas for Hamlin...

What is wrong with the English?  Why will they vote for their own
slaughter?  Is it just because May has a posh accent and Corbyn has a
working class accent?  Will they march to their doom because of a handful
of rounded vowels?

ChristAlmightyJesus do we have an entire nation, never mind a basket, full
of deplorables?

For the first time there is a leader standing who is different.  I know
Corbyn lacks charisma. I know he has compromised.  But he is a decent human
being and decency is what we need more of not less.

Yet the English working class will not see it.  The vox pop of Brenda from
Bristol - the idiot complaining about the calling of an election went
viral.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/04/19/not-another-one-brenda-bristol-captures-mood-uk-electorate-viral-clip

The ruling class loved it.  The working class refuse to see the election as
a chance to strike for a difference.  They did not have to go to a
barricade.  They did not have to face up to the police.  They just had to
vote.

But no.  The Tories are heading for a landslide. I will end this email,
before I say "I give up".

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] re Story circulating re Venezuela

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Did the Day of the Right just simply fizzle out?  Workers armed is
something of a disincentive I suspect 😄

comradely

Gary

On Sat, Apr 22, 2017 at 4:47 AM, michael a. lebowitz via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Ken H wrote:
>
> According to news accounts, Citgo, the Venezuelan oil company donated
> $500,000.00 to the Trump inauguration fund.
> It this story is true and if the bribe had led to loosening of sanctions
> against Venezuela, we might have to accept that it was a good use of
> Venezuelan money.
> ken h
> --
> --No question about the accuracy of that citgo donation but the story gets
> a bit murkier with the report of an additional 2/3s of a million donated by
> a well-connected figure [Habboush] and the subsequent access to the Trump
> government for talking about dropping sanctions on Vzla:
> http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/excess-trump-inaugu
> ration-cash-pairs-with- donor-access-926017091769.
>
>  -
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
>  University Drive
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
> Home:   Phone 604-689-9510
> Cell: 604-789-4803
>
>
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[Marxism] on plant closures and other disasters for the working class

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Walter Benjamin Thesis IX

My wing is ready to fly
*I would rather turn back*
For had I stayed mortal time
I would have had little luck.
*– Gerhard Scholem, “Angelic Greetings”*

There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted
there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something
which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and
his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His
face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he
sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and
hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the
dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from
Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel
can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the
future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him
grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
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[Marxism] the coming British Election

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I put this up in hope that someone from the UK will post something.  -
Please.

The news that May has called a snap election at the height of her
popularity in the polls is hardly a surprise.  the Labor Parliamentary
Party has reacted with dismay.  The "moderates" have spent a year now
trying to drive the party down in the polls so that Corbyn would resign.
They have succeeded in that. The party is bumping along at 20 something %.
Now the scumbags may be faced with the consequences of their treachery - a
lot of them will lose their seats.  Suddenly Corbyn is to blame again.

The Guardian which is really the rallying point for the ""moderates" is
also dismayed.  By sabotaging Corbyn the "moderates" and the Guardian may
have guaranteed a Tory landslide.

I hate to sound pessimistic but the experiment of taking over the Labour
Party and trying to turn it to the Left looks like it will end in tears.  I
don't blame Corbyn.  He lacks charisma but is a decent man surrounded and
besieged by filth.

We seem to be at the stage that things will have to get worse before they
get better.  The apathy and despair among the English working class is
palpable even from here. Many of them will not even vote now. Caste
consciousness still prevails in large sectors of the working class. It all
seems hopeless, actually.

Still Scotland refuses to be defined by English apathy. Wales too may
strike a spark. But as Tom Nairn said so long ago the English are
irredeemably Tory.

Sorry to sound so down about it all. Ah well I would be delighted to
hear if I am wrong.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Some thoughts on tomorrow's protests

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Is the Maduro government going to fall, Michael?  he seems to be trapped
half way to the revolution and surrounded by enemies who see compromise for
weakness.  I am all for broad coalitions etc, a la Chavez, but the Right
seem to want to call a ruthless Leninism into being. we had Allende and
they had Pinochet.

comradely

Gary

On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 10:14 AM, Michael Lebowitz via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: "Steve Ellner" 
> > Date: April 18, 2017 at 2:56:11 PM PDT
> > To: "Jesus Rodriguez Espinoza" , Jesús
> Rodríguez-Espinoza , "Joelle Fishman"
> , "John Hammond" ,
> "John Minns" , "Jose Gregorio Tovar" <
> tovar...@gmail.com>, "Joshua Frank" , "Joshua
> Frens-String" , "Juan Grigera" ,
> "julia Buxton" , "julia Buxton" <
> juliadbux...@yahoo.co.uk>, "Julio Escalona" ,
> "June Erlick" , "Justin Delacour" <
> justin.delac...@yahoo.com>, "Keane Bhatt" ,
> "Kevin Young" , "Kim Scipes" <
> kimsci...@earthlink.net>, "Lee Sustar" , "Leo
> Panitch" , "leonardo bracamonte" <
> lebracamo...@gmail.com>, "Lucas Alvarez" , "Lucas
> Koerner" , "Luis Alberto Andarcia" <
> luisandar...@yahoo.com>, "Luis Angosto Ferrandez"  sydney.edu.au>, "Luis Ricardo Davila" , "Magda
> Andarcia" , "Manuel Anselmi" <
> anselmiman...@gmail.com>, "Marc Becker" , "Marc
> Becker" , "Maria Riera" ,
> "Mariano Feliz" , "Mario Ayala" <
> marioayal...@yahoo.com.ar>, "Mark Weisbrot" , "Maxwell
> Cameron" , "Meredith Dodge" ,
> "Michael Albert" , "Michael Lebowitz" ,
> "Michael Lebowitz" , "Nancy Postero" <
> npost...@ucsd.edu>, "Naomi Schiller" ,
> "Pablo Morales" , "Pablo Navarrete" <
> pa...@alborada.net>, "Pablo Pozzi" , "Pascal
> Lupien" , "Patrick Clark" ,
> "Peter Ranis" , "Peter Roman" <
> pro...@hostos.cuny.edu>, "Peter Winn" , "Ralph Newmark"
> , "Renaud Lambert" <
> renaud.lamb...@mondediplo.com>, "Richard Hillman" <
> rhillm...@tampabay.rr.com>, "Robert Austin" ,
> "Rosalind Bresnahan" , "Sara Motta" <
> sara.c.mo...@newcastle.edu.au>, "Stephany Tovar" <
> stephanytova...@hotmail.com>, "Sujatha Fernandes" ,
> "Susan Spronk" , "T.M. Scruggs" <
> tm-scru...@uiowa.edu>, "Teresa Meade" , "Tom Chodor" <
> tom.cho...@monash.edu>, "Victor Hugo" , "Victor
> Wallis" , "Walter Lippmann" ,
> "William Robinson" , "Zuleika Arashiro" <
> zuleika.arash...@gmail.com>
> > Subject: Some thoughts on tomorrow's protests
> >
> >
> > WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THE VENEZUELAN  OPPOSITION PROTESTS REACH DOWNTOWN
> CARACAS?
> >>
> >> All the opposition marches in April called by Henrique Capriles and
> other Venezuelan leaders of the MUD have sought to reach downtown Caracas.
> The ostensible goal is to present a petition to the Defensoria del Pueblo.
> In a normal situation, such a mobilization would certainly be legitimate.
> But opposition leaders fully realize that the government will not allow for
> the protesters to march from the wealthy eastern part of Caracas to the
> downtown area. There are echoes of the April 11, 2002 march that led into
> the coup against President Chávez, when the opposition newspaper El
> Nacional published the large banner headline “The Final Battle in
> Miraflores,” encouraging people that day to march to the presidential
> palace.
> >>
> >> Let us assume that the Maduro government, acting in good faith, were to
> allow the opposition protesters to march to the center of Caracas. Such a
> scenario would go something like this:
> >>
> >> Scenario one: The Maduro government meets with opposition leaders and
> grants them permission to march to the center of Caracas. The opposition
> agrees to limit the march to 35,000 people and to end the protest in the
> late afternoon.
> >>
> >> Scenario two: Peaceful march to the center of Caracas. Everything goes
> according to plan.
> >>
> >> Scenario three: Opposition leaders such as Freddy Guervara (as he has
> said in the past) announces that the opposition will remain in the center
> of Caracas until their demands are met. The less extremist leaders such as
> Capriles now call on their followers to join the protest and people come in
> from the eastern part of Caracas, from the eastern part of Venezuela and
> from the west as far away as Táchira, Mérida and Maracaibo. There are now
> 750,000 protesters in the center of Caracas.
> >>
> >> Scenario four: At night

Re: [Marxism] Shamus Cooke says stop whining about Assad on Counterpunch

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I think Cooke misses the point that the most determined process of
demonisation was directed against the opposition to Assad.

comradely

Gary

On Tue, Apr 18, 2017 at 5:04 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> On 4/17/17 2:59 PM, David McDonald via Marxism wrote:
>
>> https://davidbyrnemcdonaldiii.com/?p=638
>>
>
> This was my comment about this on FB:
>
> An incredible article from Shamus Cooke arguing that "most" of the left
> was focused on how evil Assad was. What left was he talking about? The
> people like him, Mike Whitney, John Wight et al that write for
> Counterpunch? Salon's Patrick L. Smith? The ubiquitous Vijay Prashad? Tariq
> Ali? The official British antiwar movement? ANSWER? The London Review of
> Books? Stephen F. Cohen or James Carden writing for The Nation? Ben Norton
> and Max Blumenthal in Alternet?
>
> I think he probably means the ISO and New Politics, plus some cranks like
> me. I suppose if people like Cooke had any power, they'd have jailed me
> years ago.
>
>
>
>
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[Marxism] More on Korea

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Trying to guess what is about to happen re Korea is extremely difficult of
course.  One has to factor in contingency and stupidity etc.   A former
Australian judge, Kirby, was on the radio this morning saying we should all
be worried.  I am not particularly anxious and as is the paranoid way of
the Irish that is making me anxious.

I also vividly recall being 19 years old and laughing at a CND student who
was nervous about the Cuban missile crisis. She told me the world could end
and I laughed out loud.  A long time later I learned about Vasili Arkhipov
and how he saved our collective asses.

So may be we should be worried.  I think though, and this might be a wild
and foolish  guess, that the US government has over-reached.  Could they
now be in a situation where they need China to save their face?  Are they
moving or are about to move from threatening China re currency manipulation
to begging them to do America a favor and make North Korea seem to back
down.

Pence is forced to do what Kissinger did with Nixon.  Kissinger framed
Nixon as a mad dog that he was keeping on a leash and the Vietnamese had ot
come to the party or else the leash would be taken off.

Now Pence is telling the Korean they should be worried about the new mad
dog, the Great Tweeter.

So brave as I am, I make the following pronouncements.  War will not break
out this week. China will scramble together a face saving deal for Trump.
But China will exact a p[rice and it might have to do with the South China
sea island bases. All threats to these bases will have to off the agenda.

So we will see.

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] The Korean crisis

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Here in Oz there is growing interest in the situation in Korea. Channel 9
though did give us the following

The new consensus is "that this problem is coming to a head. And so it's
time for us to undertake all actions we can, short of a military option, to
try to resolve this peacefully," Mr McMaster said.

It is dangerous to over interpret this remark.  But certainly there appears
to be wriggle room.  The Great Tweeter does not appear to have noticed that
but hopefully, he will be kept in a corner tweeting away and nothing more.

Why the crisis?  North Korea cannot possibly have the capacity to inflict a
nuclear strike on the States, otherwise the whole tone would be different.
This is surely an attempt to preempt the capacity to strike.

Pressure now will be very intense on the Chinese oligarchs to act like the
good business men they are and to fall in with America's wishes. But it is
all very fraught here, and the talk of hitting Australia with rockets is
making it even more so.

I was very interested to hear the Australian TV station talk about two of
the most volatile leaders in the world.  Trump was on a par with Kim.

A bit unfair that to Kim, I thought myself.

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] Business as usual - The taming of the shrew (?)

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The Guardian head lines
US-Russia relations at a low, says Tillerson after meeting with Putin 'I
like Steve, but ...': Trump gives tepid approval of Bannon amid staff
infighting

So it looks like Trump is moving from Franco Lite to Obama Heavy.  The Lord
of the Drones has retired but now we have the Lord of the Drones, plus
Cruise Missiles, and blood thirsty tweets and Christ knows what else.

What sickens me is the audible sigh of relief of the liberal intelligentsia
as they relax back into the familiar contemplation of the spectacle of life
being made hell for millions of Muslims.

Things could go wrong though. Very wrong.  The Chinese Oligarchy may be
willing to stomp on North Korea to appease Trump, but they will pay a price
for that. the Australian Prime Minister has weighed in with a "China must
do more"  attack.  When one of the world's great cowards feels emboldened
to attack China you may well suspect the fix is on.


comradely


Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: LENIN'S TOMB: The multilateral bombing of Syria

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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As always with /Richard, when he is not out there moonlighting with Lacan,
this was a brilliant piece. I wonder though a little about his conclusion

*So what is Trump, if not a Russian puppet? He is a pure, concentrated
expression of the culture of US imperialism*.

I agree totally that Trump is not a Russian puppet. But I still think
he clings to elements of the crazy, crusader mentality that he has imbibed
from Bannon.

This morning though on the radio, the American view was put by a range of
Administration personnel.  Trump has been wheeled into the background.

A goodly percentage of the world's elites have been reassured by the firing
of  59 tomahawk missiles.  It is business as usual.  Mathis assures us that
it will not escalate, we will just continue to kill Arabs and to stomp on
the Arab revolution..  All that is enormously comforting to those alarmed
by Bannonism

But Trump's domestic agenda would seem stalled and that is a crucial
weakness. Whether we will see a foreign emergency to offset that failure,
as Richard hints, remains unclear.

The Chinese Army is mobilising on the Korean border according to some
reports.  What is the Chinese oligarchy up to?  Are they about to try and
sell out North Korea?  Could they get away with that??

We will find out soon enough, I suspect.  But all this is very dangerous,
and the strategy of letting Arb bleed Arab could get out of control easily.

comradely

Gary

On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:59 PM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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> *
>
>
>
> http://www.leninology.co.uk/2017/04/the-multilateral-bombing
> -of-syria_10.html
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Re: [Marxism] Question about IZA-Institute of Labor Economics

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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No information to give Manuel, but I am very interested in the possible
relevance of this study for Indigenous teaching in Australia. Thank you for
posting it

comradely

Gary

On Mon, Apr 10, 2017 at 3:33 AM, Manuel Barrera via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Hello, I wonder if any on this list can provide information on a
> German-based foundation, IZA-Institute of Labor Economics. Here is the
> website: https://www.iza.org/en/about
>
> They just published an interesting (sounding) study on the role of "Same
> race" teachers and educational outcomes, specifically among Black U.S.
> students (cf. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/study-black-students-from-
> poor-families-are-more-likely-to-graduate-high-school-if-
> they-have-at-least-one-black-teacher/ar-BBzBuQy?li=BBnbcA1). However, in
> their description they tout their interests as "building a bridge between
> science and society. We want to facilitate the communication of existing
> knowledge while at the same time stimulating research to close knowledge
> gaps. We see this approach as complementary to purely academic research.
> The transfer of scientific knowledge is an important task which has often
> been undervalued in traditional research and requires extra efforts." They
> also say they are seeking "to achieve a fair balance between individual
> wealth and societal wealth. In light of rapidly developing technological
> innovations and changing social policy needs, the search for effective
> solutions will remain a continuous challenge."
>
>
> My  interest here is to find on-the-ground background knowledge about
> their credibility regarding their findings and their intents regarding the
> study I mentioned before about Black students benefiting from Black
> teachers. I'm sure some of you may simply think the issue is too much
> "identity politics". If so, just ignore the post and go about your
> business. Those of you who may some information, I would greatly appreciate
> it.
>
> MB
>
> [http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BBzBuQu.img]<
> http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/study-black-students-from-
> poor-families-are-more-likely-to-graduate-high-school-if-
> they-have-at-least-one-black-teacher/ar-BBzBuQy?li=BBnbcA1>
>
> Study: Black students from poor families are more likely to graduate high
> school if they have at least one black teacher us/news/us/study-black-students-from-poor-families-
> are-more-likely-to-graduate-high-school-if-they-have-at-
> least-one-black-teacher/ar-BBzBuQy?li=BBnbcA1>
> www.msn.com
> The results are most marked for male African American students from very
> low-income families, the Johns Hopkins research finds.
>
>
> IZA - Institute of Labor Economics
> www.iza.org
> IZA is an independent economic research institute that conducts research
> in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market
> issues.
>
>
>
>
> Manuel Barrera, PhD
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: "I Am Cuba" on CUNY TV

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I used to use it in my classes.  It is a truly amazing film.

ae

Gary

On Sun, Apr 9, 2017 at 6:11 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> I saw this film in the 60s. Amazing work. New Yorkers should not miss it.
>
>
>
> Sat. April 8
> 9:00pmCity Cinematheque  inematheque/PR2006180>
> I Am Cuba (1964)
>
> Sun. April 9
> 9:00pmCity Cinematheque  inematheque/PR2006180>
> I Am Cuba (1964)
>
> Guardian article by Richard Gott
> https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/nov/12/cuba
>
> Stephen Holden's NY Times review
> http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=990CE2DB1E39F93BA35750C0A963958260
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[Marxism] Trump acts

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I have just been on the phone to an old friend and he informed me of the
Trump air strike. It is early to try and work out what that is all about.
I personally think that it was primarily aimed at China and Trump's
deteriorating domestic situation.  I always feared that Trump would get a
9/11 to bail him out of trouble.  That has nto happened yet, but he may
have invented his own crisis.

I suspect the Chinese are frightened by Trump - frightened by his
irrationality.  His corruption of course would be welcome to the Chinese
oligarchy and they would be very comfortable with it.  But they are dealing
with a creature whose grip on sanity never mind power is very unstable.
Trump could miscalculate.  He could make a mistake & then we would all be
in trouble.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Articulating Trumpism, or, Thanks, Obama! | Berkeley Journal of Sociology

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I read this with considerable care.  It is part of a discourse that I
actively dislike.  It begins with an incorrect assumption about Trump's
power. The argument is that he has a hold over the "people" and we should
all shit our pants accordingly.

We need instead to take seriously Levenson's own criticisms of the role of
the Democrats and the trade union bureaucracy in their absolute complicity
with neoliberalism. I fully endorse these btw.

My take on Trump's "victory", as I have said before, is that this was an
election that it was almost impossible for the non-Democrat candidate to
lose and Trump came close to losing it. Levenson should begin his analysis
not with Trump's victory but rather with the fact that his power base is so
small and moreover it is unstable.

For the present Trump would appear to have captured the moment of
opposition  Clinton made that easy by campaigning for the status quo. But
Trump is now the POTUS and so inevitably he becomes the target of the
impulse to oppose.

At some stage the buffoonery will have to stop.  He knows how to continue
campaigning, but he will also have to start governing.  And so far he has
made an absolute hash of that. He has been defeated on Obamacare and Border
control. And that is because he does not command a sufficiently broad
consensus.

Nor does he have a solution to the ravages that neoliberalism has inflicted
on the American working class. Some Keynesians think he does, but I do not
believe that.  If I am correct the House that Trump built will come
crashing down around him.  Then even Levenson will realize that the Emperor
has no clothes.

comradely

Gary





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[Marxism] worth a read

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http://www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/batshit-britain-really-want-declare-war-spain/

James Butler of Novara Media has a splendid piece on the Gibraltar spat.  A
former leader of the Conservative party, Lord Howard, has threatened a
Thatcher style war on Spain over the future of Gibraltar as Brexit kicks
into gear.

Gibraltar's economy is tied totally to the EU and as a consequence it voted
95% to remain in Europe. What happens next is anyone's guess. Northern
Ireland, Scotland, London and Gibraltar see their future in Europe but they
are leaving.

It would be wrong to simply dismiss Howard's evocation of Thatcher as
nonsense.  It is stupid etc, of course but it also is, as Butler shows, a
very significant indicator of the John Bull psyche.

 comradely

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[Marxism] Trump on trade

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I am surprised that there has not been much comment on the list on Trump's
recent speech about trade deals.  It was played at length here on the
public broadcaster economic program.  Listening to it I thought I caught a
glimpse of what it might have been to listen to FDR talk about Pearl Harbor
or Churchill talking about having nothing to offer but blood sweat and
tears.  The delivery was of course uniquely Trump-'s He is sounding more
and more like Alec Baldwin.

The content about how overseas countries had stolen American jobs etc was
total bullshit. but I could imagine that it went down very well with many
US workers.  But this was above all American Nationalism on display and it
will call fort oppositional nationalisms.

here in Oz the far right continue to mutate.  The leader of One nation, the
racist Pauline Hanson initially supported cutting penalty rates for lower
paid workers.  She did badly in the Western Australian state election and
has subsequently back flipped. and now advocates the retention of penalty
rates and put forwarded proposal to prevent unions for doing deals that
would cut penalty rates. Other independents have followed suit.

It is a bit early to say, but it may be that the far Right here have
discovered Strasserism - that wing of Nazism which was anti-capitalistic in
rhetoric and was founded by the Strasser Brothers, Gregor and Otto. The
Strasserites were of course sold out by Hitler in 1934 in the Night of the
Long Knives, and Gregor was among the murdered.  But I think they were
essential to the early growth of the National Socialist Party.

Certainly the Labor Party is still rusted on to neoliberalism and could
easily be outflanked on the Left even by fake Strasserites. It is something
to keep our eyes on in the coming period.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] NZ: Labour & Greens declare commitment to 'fiscal responsibility'

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It means that we will have to have another crash before these clowns do a
rethink. Not surprising given the record of NZ Labor as the driving force
for neoliberalism in 1984 with the execrable Roger Douglas leading the
charge.

I think the Keating nostalgia that grips the Labor Party still, is very
much inclined to ignore the role of Keating and Douglas in bringing
neoliberalism to Australian and NZ. At least there does not appear to be
any nostalgia for Douglas.

comradely

Gary

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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Exists is Good: On “The Architecture of Neoliberalism” - Los Angeles Review of Books

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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As always, thanks Lou for posting this.  I want though to comment on this
paragraph from Staten's article.  He wrote

*Neoliberalism does not impose itself on us coercively, via punitive
measures or structures of discipline, but gently shapes our common-sense
understandings of the world and ourselves through the medium of our
everyday experiences, turning us into competitors, entrepreneurs, and
round-the-clock workers. We are not exactly subjugated by neoliberalism, as
one is subjugated by totalitarianism; instead, we are “subjectified” by it.
Rather than its victims, we learn to become its willing participants; and
architecture, argues Spencer, becomes one of our key instructors.*

I am currently working though Enzo Traverso's Left wing Melancholia and
also preparing a piece on the great South East Queensland Electricity Board
[a publicly owned entity] dispute in Queensland in the 1985 period when
1002 electricity workers were sacked and their work was outsourced to
private contractors.   It was one of the incipient moments in the onset of
neoliberalism in Australia and it was far from gentle.  I myself was
arrested five times that year and fined thousands of dollars for solidarity
work on picket lines that were made illegal by the government. Others
suffered much more, of course

Now, a central part of Traverso's argument is that we must see the past not
in terms of victim-hood but as the defeat of militancy.  The defeats
testify to the existence of struggle and we mourn them, but we also try to
learn from the defeats. The Staten-Foucault thesis though would deny
struggle and agency and therefore the possibility of an alternative
outcome.  It is as if neoliberalism is piped into the air
conditioning system and we all become robotic neoliberals.

Rubbish, yes and it does not give any indication how we are now at the
stage where neoliberalism is breaking down as a paradigm and we are capable
of making a rational judgement that we would be better off with an
alternative paradigm.

Staten's article reinforces for me personally once again the danger of
Foucault-Nietzsche thought with its inherent disdain for the possibility
that the lower orders might have agency.

comradely

Gary

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[Marxism] Will Trump last four years?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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It's really sheer hubris that makes us continue to ask questions that need
a crystal ball. But we do and really that is about the future in the
present. We are saying in effect that the balance of forces now are such
that Trump will go.

>From here I have no idea of the lived texture of American politics. But I
am inclined to agree with John that Trump will be wheeled off stage.

I am not at all sure, moreover, that a foreign war would save him. The Iraq
War was touch and go for a while.  A Trump War would have all of us on the
streets.  He has no mandate to end the world and that would be said very
loudly and clearly and with a degree of militancy that the Iraq protests
lacked.

comradely

Gary.
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[Marxism] Down Under

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The recent state election in Western Australia (WA) has provided us all
with some material to work through on the prospects of the Far Right (FR)
in Australia. The FR  is led federally by Qld's own Pauline Hanson - former
owner of a fish and chip shop. Her *One Nation* *Party* is in many ways a
personality cult. She has been around for some time having been a member of
parliament from 1996-8. As always on the FR she has a Feared Despised Other
that she uses to whet the appetite of her supporters. In her first
incarnation the Feared Despised Other was the Aboriginal - no surprises
there. Then she made a mistake and nominated the Chinese as the Feared
Despised Other and claimed they were "swamping" Australia.  the Murdoch
Press which had been mollycoddling her dropped her like a hot brick.  At
that time Murdoch was negotiating deals in China and was about to marry a
Chinese wife. So being anti-Chinese was simply stupid.

With the cracks that have emerged in the neoliberal paradigm Hanson has
re-emerge and was elected to the Senate in 2016. A significant change to
her politics is that firstly she has soft-pedaled on Aborigines, claiming
she was only ever concerned about violence towards women. More
significantly, perhaps, she has now nominated Muslims as the Feared
Despised Other and has dropped all references to being swamped by Chinese.
We are now being swamped by Muslims and the imposition of Sharia and the
Hijab is just around the corner.

Not surprisingly arch Zionist and hater of Muslims, Rupert Murdoch has
allowed his press to once again give her lots of oxygen.

Following Trump's victory it was widely predicted in the same press that
Hanson would do very well in the State election.  We have a directionless
conservative government led by a neoliberal social progressivist- Malcolm
Turnbull.  He has the narrowest of majorities and is a prisoner of the hard
right of his party. That means that Turnbull cannot play to his strength on
issues such as advocating more humane treatment of refugees, Australia
becoming a republic, or marriage equality. His economic policies veer from
Austerity lite to much harder measures.  Basically he seems to follow the
Say Mantra - Supply makes its own demand.  He likens the federal budget to
the family budget and calls the  deficit a moral betrayal of future
generations. The result is a stagnating economy and simmering discontent
which the Murdoch Press has attempted to shepherd towards One Nation.

Hanson growing ever bolder arranged a preference swap with the governing
conservative party in WA.  Polls put here before the deal at 13%.  In the
Federal Parliament Hanson worked closely with the Government to pass
anti-union laws, argued for wage cuts in the form of a lowering of penalty
rates.

What she did not understand, because she is born under the Sign of Stupid,
is that her support for the Federal Government diminished her radical
protest image.  When push come to shove whining about Sharia does not put
"food on the family" as George Bush Jr used to say, nor can anyone show how
it can improve job prospects for the unemployed.  What One Nation lacks is
the Bannon factor - someone who will launch a reactionary Keynesian
program.  Hanson is so anti-worker that she cannot play the role of the
Savior of Australian Jobs.

As a consequence her campaign in WA stalled and instead of 13% she got a
mere 4.8%.  It is true, though, that nationally she is still polling around
11% and her base in Queensland has not been tested.

Nevertheless I think one can say that Hanson failed in WA because she was
not sufficiently radical.  Unlike the Nazis before they took power in 1933,
her decisions in parliament are pro-establishment. Hitler of course did a
dirty deal with the Hindenburgs and got rid of his radical followers in the
Night of the Long Knives.  But Hanson has done her dirty deals before she
has power and it looks like it is her conservatism that was punished in the
polls in WA.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Of course they wiretapped Trump & his aides

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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This just seems like common sense to me.  This is a deeply paranoid state
which is also extremely labyrinthine.  The movie *Wag the Dog* is as close
as I have scene to a documentary record of the shenanigans that go on.

I cannot really make a judgement from this distance, but I am beginning to
get the feeling that Trump is in trouble.  I wonder how true that will turn
out to be.

comradely

Gary

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Joaquin Bustelo via Marxism <
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> Two things tell us that Trump's people were wiretapped.
>
>  * Thing one:/Everyone/is being wiretapped by the NSA.
>  * Thing two: There was an FBI investigation of Trump and his aides.
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> full: http://hatueysashes.blogspot.com/2017/03/of-course-they-wire
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[Marxism] (no subject)

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Lou wrote: *Just got off the phone with an old friend from Bard whose
son-in-law is  highly placed former military officer now involved with
intelligence gathering for Republican politicians. He told my friend that a
bloc is  forming between Republicans and Democrats to remove Trump because
he is viewed as incompetent and mentally unstable. Interesting times we're
living*.

Interesting indeed-. Here in Australia we have had seven changes of Prime
Minister in ten years compared with four in the 1975 to 2007 period.
Admittedly the electoral cycle in Australia is 3 years only but consensus
has eroded around what is the "responsible" thing for governments to do and
the result is a great deal of institutional instability.

Stability will only return with a decisive victory for one side or other in
the great war of the 1% versus the rest of us. certainly that was what
happened in Australia in the Great Depression. The defeats of the strikes
of 1928-9 led to conservative governments (Both Tory and Labor) staying in
power for decades.

I am inclined to believe that the American ruling class will want an
alternative leader to be their point man in the coming battle.

comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] Trump as seen from Down Under

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I have mentioned before that the right wing her in Australia have been
immensely emboldened by the Trump victory.  Now there have been a salvo let
loose from the Left.   Leftist historian, speech writer and script writer
Don Watson has let loose on the Trump "horror show" in *The Monthly*.

The article is at

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/march/1488286800/don-watson/american-berserk

For starters it is brilliantly written. Watson is a major stylist and has
produced a genuinely enjoyable take down of the monster in the Oval
Office.  His line is interesting.  He depicts Trump as quintessentially
American and asks why has it taken so long to produce a president like
him.  He writes:

*A scam artist, an ignoramus, a professional liar, a colossal and malignant
narcissist, a vulgarian, a casino operator, a serial bankrupt – a Roy
Cohn–mentored billionaire with deep Mob connections – is in the White
House. Has there ever been a more American presidency? What took them so
long?*



He then flirts with channeling the Nietzschean intellectual, H. L. Mencken,
and his talk of the "morons".  Watson of course is forced to condemn
Clinton's talk of a "basketful of deplorables" and he rightly says that
phrase will be her legacy.

My comment is this.  If we want to say or if we accept that Trump's victory
is a victory for typical Americans then we cannot avoid the Mencken
position that the majority of Americans are deplorables or morons.  And
Watson is trapped here.

The solution of course is to insist that Trump is a minority President.
That happens to accord with empirical reality.   There is no need then to
flirt with Mencken and Nietzsche and deplore the role of the majority and
to bask in the self-pity of the isolated intellectual.

We actually have an opportunity for the left intelligentsia to end its
isolation and to break through to a mass base by opposing Trump.  But we
will never get there if we think he represents the majority.  My take on it
all remains that the American ruling class (the true deplorables) has made
a major error in allowing the jester to keep prancing around in the crown
and the robes of the king after the carnival is over.  The fact that the
jester is a sociopath and a narcissist compounds the error.

We are about to see major acts of resistance by a wide variety of interest
groups.  They will all be united by a realization of the necessity to say
No to Trump.  that is the good news story.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ditching the Deep State | Jacobin

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Interesting article no doubt and my thanks for posting it.  Myself tends to
disagree with his conclusions but then what I think of as the "deep state"
is not what he thinks the concept means.

I grant the notion of the state as a strategic field and also the notion
that there are factions etc within the state.

But if we step back from that picture then we can see that the American
state has  had a broad directional unity.  That unity is fracturing because
of the crisis within the neoliberal paradigm. The same crisis had put the
deplorables and the menagerie of misfits in the Oval Office.  And there are
some sections of the state that do not like that and are getting to like it
even less.  Whether we call them the Deep State or not does not exercise my
mind overly.  But then as I have often said I am Irish and we scatter words
like drunken sailors spend dollars on a Saturday night.

comradely

Gary

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[Marxism] Benjamin's Eighth Thesis on the Philosophy of History

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VIII

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in
which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which
corresponds to this. Then it will become clear that the task before us is
the introduction of a real state of emergency; and our position in the
struggle against Fascism will thereby improve. Not the least reason that
the latter has a chance is that its opponents, in the name of progress,
greet it as a historical norm. – The astonishment that the things we are
experiencing in the 20th century are “still” possible is by no means
philosophical. It is not the beginning of knowledge, unless it would be the
knowledge that the conception of history on which it rests is untenable.

Friends continue to send me the lots of analyses of Trump  the latest is a
piece for Time by a Bret Stephens-
http://time.com/4675860/donald-trump-fake-news-attacks/.  He appears to be
a clever conservative, but I tend at a stretch.to put him the the category
that says Trump is a genius and he is doing all this to get us upset and
angry and we are falling into a trap.

Stephens as a conservative, fails to contextualize Trump.  It is vital I
believe to acknowledge just how small Trump's victory was. Some 75% of
Americans either voted against or didn't vote for him.  His base is very
narrow and historically one of the smallest for a Republican.  Trump was a
protest candidate at a time when the system's failures are becoming
blatantly obvious to most people. Faced with a venal and corrupt and stupid
Democratic Party candidate and machine, Trump almost lost.   I will repeat
- this was the Drover's dog election, that is, anyone, even the dog of the
drover, could have won it. That is how we should view the show that is
being unfolded in front of us.

James Butler of Novara Media is spot on with his analysis.  The Trump show
is chaotic.  They are making it up as they go along.  It is remotely
possible that Bannon intends to activate his plan to spend trillions to get
America working again.  I doubt very much if Trump could pull that off. But
we shall see. Anything short of a full on attack on the decay of the
economy will spell disaster for Trump.

Now Lou in his blog on the Deep State attempted to characterize the period
we are going through.  He appears to think it parallels the awakening in
the 60s from the dead hand of the Cold War. I don't live in the States so I
cannot judge whether the analogy is apt or not.  But I do agree that the
period is new and that it contains possibilities for the Left that have not
existed for years.

To link up the Benjamin thesis, I would say that our task is to turn what
appears to be a state of emergency into a real state of emergency.  We are
not in a state of emergency  just because Trump is a narcissistic fool.
The truth, as I see it, is that the ruling class in the States does not
have a clue how to proceed. Moreover, their ignorance is matched with an
obdurate arrogance that facilitated their willingness to put a menagerie of
misfits into the White House.

These are conditions which might well aid the rise of a great refusal by
the proletariat.  That would constitute a real emergency.

comradely


Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: What Is the Deep State? | The Nation

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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What I suspect is happening is this.  The Security apparatuses are herding
Trump in a particular direction. It would appear to be away from Russia and
back to NATO's encirclement option.  Is it working?  Hard to say but it is
worth noting that the White House grandees who spoke in Europe recently
were all keen to say they were going along with that option.

For me the leaks are all about the disciplining of the President.

The other stuff that Trump appears to be into - The Judaeo Christian
warrior looking for a Battle of Lepanto Mark 2 - has most sane people at
least puzzled.  Who knows what the CIA etc think of this?  When they look
at Bannon do they see "The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the
wall;  the last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung that
once went winging southward when all the world was young?"

I have no idea.  How could I?  But I have a strong suspicion that Bannon
who probably grew up on a diet of Chesterton and Belloc looks in the mirror
every morning and sees a latter day Don Juan.

In any case we would do well not to underestimate the paranoia of the
denizens of the Deep State. When they look at Trump they appear to worry
that they may be looking at the Moscow Candidate. Most people discounted
the story of the "Pee Pee Tape" as SNL calls it.  But I do wish I had the
same chance of winning the lotto as the odds that the CIA etc believe such
a tape exists.

So what will happen?  My guess is that Trump will be herded away from
Putin.  Then there might be an operation to herd him away from Bannon.

If Trump resists, he will go down.

ae

Gary

On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 12:16 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> By Greg Grandin.
>
> https://www.thenation.com/article/what-is-the-deep-state/
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[Marxism] Once there was Deep Throat now there is ...

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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http://www.alternet.org/trump-vs-deep-state

A friend sent me the above link to an article on the Deep State versus
Trump.  Frankly I don't know what to make of it. I am too far away from the
American scene.  Nor do I know what to make of the whole Russia Phobia
"thang" that seems to be settling around Trump like shit to a blanket.

I have always had the attitude of staying way from the Secret Police and
part of that has been not to think about them, never mind write about
them.  But two remarks stick in my mind.  Recently Richard Seymour opined
that Bannon was taking on the State and he was up against it as the
American state is labyrinthine.  The other remark that has influenced me
over the years was Poulantzas' comment that power can from from one sector
of the state to another as the need of the capitalist class demands it. For
example in 1975 power flowed to the largely ceremonial Office of the
Governor of Australia, Sir John Kerr, and he sacked the Labor Prime
Minister, Gough Whitlam.

So if sections of the State are taking on Trump, what are we to make of it?
My personal attitude is summed up in the saying "When rogues fall out,
honest men get into their own".

But I would be very interested to hear what other, especially American,
comrades think.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Henry VIII and anti-immigrant protests

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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What was political correctness in 1517?  Talk of "aliens" was not
politically correct (or safe) it would seem.

comradely

Gary

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 6:58 PM, Dennis Brasky via Marxism <
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> http://www.delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=3270
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Gallup poll: Trump approval rating at new low - CNNPolitics.com

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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What worries me is that he is getting 40% approval rating.  Who are those
guys?

comradely

Gary

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>
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/donald-trump-approval
> -poll-low-gallup/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: The Choices for the Left in the Age of Trump

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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sickening

Gary

On Wed, Feb 8, 2017 at 6:25 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
> (Just the sort of thing you'd expect from Boris Kagarlitsky whose
> think-tank is funded by the Kremlin.)
>
> Besides, Trump never said anything wrong regarding African Americans,
> women or gays, except for a private conversation many years ago, when he
> told his friend about an unsuccessful attempt to molest some lady… But what
> Trump said, or did not say does not matter.
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/07/the-choices-for-the-
> left-in-the-age-of-trump/
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[Marxism] a query

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I am doing some work on the Aboriginal thinker Noel Pearson. He cites
approvingly the work of Shelby Steele.  I would be grateful for any
pointers to the latter - critiques especially

ae

Gary
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[Marxism] what can we learn from that phone call?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The now notorious phone call between Trump and Australia's Prime Minister
holds I feel a key to understanding the Trump Presidency. Turnbull rang
Trump and the call was scheduled for 50 minutes but the POTUS rang off
after 25 minutes or so.  The issue was the deal that Turnbull had worked
out with Obama to send over a thousand refugees to America in turn for
Australia taking refugees from Latin America. Apparently Turnbull insisted
that Trump stand by the Obama deal.

What happens next is the key.  Trump's forces spotted the chance to get one
over Obama.  Trum Camp leaded to the Washington Post what happened in the
phone call and Trump tweeted about the dumb deal.  Turnbull had been
putting a brace face on the call and was taken aback by the leaks. But in
the States Trump's enemies, especially John McCain, saw a chance to get
back at Trump.  the line was that the President had insulted the most loyal
of allies who had shed blood with Australia in every war.

Trump was forced to withdraw and Spicer was trundled out to put a brave
face on it. He could not do a proper job and compounded matters by calling
Turnbull "Trumble" (I loved that).

So there we have it - a Presidential team that shots from the lip.  One
that is badly briefed and incompetent, vain, irascible and *vulnerable*.

How does that square with the "brain fade" thesis which has Camp Trump as a
centre of super plotters who just want the Left to come out onto the
streets and scream?  Well it doesn't fit the brain fade thesis at all..
Kriss, Butler and Seymour are correct. This is not to say though that Camp
Trump are not dangerous.  They are but the pressure from the Judiciary,
branches of the state and above all in the streets has made Trump's mission
all the more difficult.

Advantage Resistance so far.

Comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] How Violence Undermined the Berkeley Protest On Campus

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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thanks for posting this, Lou.  It is all well said

comradely

Gary

On Sat, Feb 4, 2017 at 8:06 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
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>
>
> Then I saw someone wearing all black walk up to a student wearing a suit
> and say, “You look like a Nazi.” The student was confused, but before he
> could reply, the black-clad person pepper-sprayed him and hit him on the
> back with a rod.
>
> I ran after the student who was attacked to get his name and more
> information. He told me that he is a Syrian Muslim. Before I could find out
> more, he fled, fearing another attack. Amid the chaos came word the event
> had been canceled.
>
> 
>
> NY Times Op-Ed, Feb. 3 2017
> How Violence Undermined the Berkeley Protest On Campus
> Malini Ramaiyer
>
> BERKELEY, Calif. — What do you do as a reporter when a protest begins? You
> cover it.
>
> But what about when the man being protested is known for rhetoric that
> makes you nauseated? Or when you see a student get beaten up because he
> looked “like a Nazi”?
>
> How do you remain objective?
>
> Those were the questions that faced me when, as a reporter for the student
> newspaper at the University of California, Berkeley, I covered the protest
> on Wednesday night at the college that turned violent, drawing national
> attention. I didn’t know what to think about it all, and truthfully, I
> still don’t.
>
> The protesters were demonstrating against a scheduled speech on campus by
> Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart editor and right-wing provocateur, who had
> been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans.
>
> This was always going to be a controversial event. Mr. Yiannopoulos has
> been giving inflammatory speeches on a college tour meant to push back
> against what he sees as the stifling politically correct left. But his
> language has veered decidedly toward hate speech. At the University of
> Wisconsin-Milwaukee, for example, he singled out a transgender student for
> ridicule by name.
>
> Because of actions like that, many Berkeley students and more than 100
> faculty members petitioned the university to block the event, but the
> chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, declined to do so, citing free speech.
>
> This, of course, raises questions about free speech: Is it free speech if
> it makes us feel unsafe in our own skin? On the other hand, what does this
> campus represent if it doesn’t respect the rights of people with whom many
> of us disagree?
>
> Protests are a staple at Berkeley and I’ve always appreciated the activism
> here. Wednesday night, I saw many creative posters urging people to fight
> Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and racism. One
> group of protesters wore red ribbons emblazoned “Resist,” while another led
> a “resistance dance party” near the venue.
>
> Until Wednesday, I never felt in danger during a protest. Around 7 p.m. I
> saw a huddle of people yelling at one another. As more people surrounded
> them, a burning red trucker’s hat was held up on a stick. There were
> reports that another student wearing what appeared to be a “Make America
> Great Again” hat was severely injured.
>
> Then I saw someone wearing all black walk up to a student wearing a suit
> and say, “You look like a Nazi.” The student was confused, but before he
> could reply, the black-clad person pepper-sprayed him and hit him on the
> back with a rod.
>
> I ran after the student who was attacked to get his name and more
> information. He told me that he is a Syrian Muslim. Before I could find out
> more, he fled, fearing another attack. Amid the chaos came word the event
> had been canceled.
>
> It was clear early on that the majority of violent protesters most likely
> were not from the campus. Still, in the aftermath, I heard people say that
> peaceful demonstrations would not have succeeded in preventing Mr.
> Yiannopoulos from speaking. So was violence appropriate?
>
> A Trump supporter was hurt. A Syrian Muslim student was hurt. Does either
> of those statements seem more outrageous than the other?
>
> Violence often has unintended consequences. For one thing, those who
> initiated the violence implicated many others in it too. Black students,
> Latino students, gay students and others who are already vulnerable — and
> were protesting peacefully — became even more vulnerable to the

[Marxism] Is it a trap?

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Over at Crikey.com Guy Rundle has penned a piece entitled *Rundle: liberal
howls of outrage over Muslim ban play into Trump's tiny hands*. It is
behind a paywall and I won't pay money to read the kind of rubbish that
liberals turn out every time the people/working class enter the stage of
history. Every mass reaction has had some soi-disant leftist say it is a
trap and we are falling into it. James Butler of NovaraMedia has answered
that very well

http://www.huckmagazine.com/perspectives/opinion-perspectives/ignore-trumpologists/

and so has Richard Seymour
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2017/01/against-omniscience.html

and Sam Kriss

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/liberals-on-the-edge-of-a-nervous-breakdown-214727

The liberal intelligentsia who say the protests are playing into Trump's
hands are repeating the reaction of Matthew Arnold to the riot in Hyde Park
in 1866. Then as now the intellectual feared the spectacle of the sans
culottes becoming a political subject.

The only hope for humanity is that the mass protests continue.  They have
shocked Team Trump to the core.  For sure protesting can initially lead to
a reaction.  But it is clear that not to protest would be an absolute
disaster. It would embolden Trump and weaken the opposition to him from
inside the State.

I lived through the Bjelke-Petersen years when he played a vanguard role
for the Far Right and the onset of Neo-liberalism through his use of
unchecked parliamentary powers. As I have said there was a constant chorus
of "He wants us to protest" and "You protesters are laying into his hands".

Petersen was supposed to be a tactical genius who laid traps for Leftists
like me.  He was an impulsive bumbling idiot who did not finish a sentence
for 20 years and who relied totally on the craven cowardice of the liberals.

Sound familiar?

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Little heard in public, Bannon is quiet power in Oval Office

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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It's hard to say, Mark.  I think we have a first class idiot in the White
House and I suspect that he is easily manipulated through flattery. Like if
we step back from it all and just replay some of the tapes - The breakfast
tape was amazing.  How could he begin by talking about his ratings?  He has
no dignitas nor gravitas. And all around him are fawning.

>From this distance it is mind boggling.  He ripped the Prime Minister of
Australia  "Trunbull" a new ass and he is still whimpering.  Meanwhile all
those who want to be Prime Minister of Australia are giggling  but
nervously.
comradely

Gary

On Fri, Feb 3, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Mark Lause via Marxism <
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>
> Bannon is hardly any kind of Washington insider powerhouse.  I suspect that
> he's regarded with a quiet scorn in many corners of the capital.
>
> However, this idea that he is a dark sinister power fits the usual
> Democratic apology for their lack of backbone--which involves building up
> the Republicans into a kind of invincible force.  Rather like Monty
> Phython's killer rabbit. :-)
>
> ML
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[Marxism] the spat with Australia

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The Prime Minister of Australia is in deep trouble. As listers would know
he did a deal with Obama to swap refugees from the Middle East for some
from Latin America. He had a phone conversation with Trump who abused him
and then hung up.  Turnbull went on the airways and said the deal was still
on, and the President did not hang up on him.. Then the Trump Show saw an
opportunity.  They leaked and tweeted about the "dumb deal" Obama had done.
Egg  all over Turnbull's face.  As one media commentator put it "Trump
handed him his arse".

Turnbull's enemies inside his own party have been smelling blood. They have
been making pro-Trump statements and all that is heavily coded for
"Turnbull must go".

The Right in Australia though are genuinely afraid of a world with the USA
army.  That Turnbull offended the POTUS will be seen as a black mark. It is
impossible to predict things, of course, but Turnbull looks like Dead Man
Walking, such is the nature of the Trump Effect Down Under.

comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Don’t Give In To Coup Fantasies; Power is More Straightforward

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I prefer the analysis at Richard Seymour’s Lenin’s Tomb. He has it that
Bannon has overreached but is trying to reconstruct politics to the far
right in a period which Bannon sees in apocalyptic terms.
What has stymied the Trump forces has been the reaction in the streets,
within the state and in sections of capital. Of these three the most
important is the reaction in the street. It was swift and instinctive and
totally correct. It did not need the stock exchange to tell it to act. And
at best it knows the stock exchange is a crude and unreliable indicator of
success in the struggle against the Far Right.

comradely

Gary

On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 4:44 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> I am getting notes and articles forwarded from numerous people, smart
> people, that are full of paranoid speculation about coups, false flag
> operations, and military mobilizations.
>
> STOP IT.
>
> This is exactly what the Trumpkins want. They want you to be paranoid, to
> be consumed by fear and irrationality. The last thing they want you to be
> is thoughtful, careful, rational. They want you to overreact and succumb to
> lurid fantasies.
>
> Their exercise of power thus far is muscular but also chaotic, banal, and
> largely symbolic.
>
> Take the Muslim ban. It is possible the botched order was a trial balloon
> by Bannon to see how various forces would react — the media, protesters,
> the judiciary, civil society. But it spurred an incredible resistance. Yes,
> many people will suffer but they really shot themselves in the foot with
> this one.
>
> full: http://www.anarresproject.org/dont-give-into-coup-fantasies-
> power-is-more-straightforward/
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Re: [Marxism] Replying to tweets from Lenin's Tomb

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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No Andrew, the exact opposite.  He is saying give it all we can. He thinks
Bannon has made a serious mistake.  I hope he is correct, but it will only
be a mistake if the streets are filled with hundreds of thousands of
protesters.

The game is afoot, Andrew.  I am deadly serious when I say the future of
humanity is at stake.  If I get time I will try and get a piece up on the
impact of Trump's victory on the Right here in Australia.  They are now
bolder than they have ever been.

But we are a side show.  Strangely enough, the struggle in the UK around
the State Visit of Trump is one to watch.  As Richard would have it, the
aleatory is at work.  May was not to know that the invitation to Trump
would have turned out to be such a disaster and then that photograph of her
holding hands.

Her advisors are still probably cursing.

comradely

Gary

ae

Gary

On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 9:13 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism <
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>
> so is Seymour saying NOT to demonstrate?
>
>
> >
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[Marxism] Replying to tweets from Lenin's Tomb

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Richard Seymour tweeted

1.) Pieces like this

are circulating which imply *far* too much coherence on admin's part, and
underestimate backlash

2.) Supposing Bannon et al *did* plan for exactly this to happen, it was a
bad plan. They're over-reaching. The protests are bad for them.

3.) it would be far better for the admin to be met passively, and for CIA
to be their major opponent, as that would mostly energise Right.

4.) Likewise, the opposition of the Federal courts is *weakening* the admin
and will strengthen opposition within the state.

5.) more generally, one by product of triumph of conspiratorial right is
the conspiracy mindset it produces - we've had the alt-centre etc.

6.) it would be a big mistake for the Left to go down these rabbit holes.
The admin is *gambling*. That means there is deep indeterminacy.

7.) we also have the advantage that Bannon's bet is based on a mystical
conception of history, the 80-year-crisis theory.

8.) being a fascist, he also tends to overestimate what sheer chutzpah can
do (liberals tend to underestimate that).

9.) but this kind of gamble also makes sense if you know you only have one
chance before the window closes. That explains the aggression.

10.) at the level of theory, any account of politics that excludes the
aleatory will tend toward determinism or conspiracy theory.


I have taken the above from Richard Seymour’s twitter account. As usual I
agree with him. For me the point that Trump & Bannon have a master plan to
lure the Left out on the street so they can create support for the regime
is reminiscent of the stuff that the soft liberals spread in the 70s here
in Qld.  Then the line was that the Petersen government had  a master plan
to get the Left to demonstrate so that it could strengthen the Petersen
government.  The small liberals used that as an excuse not to oppose
Petersen in the streets. If Petersen had not been opposed he would have
gotten bolder.


Exactly the same applies to Bannon & Trump.  Without opposition, they will
become very much bolder.  Liberal critiques of the protest movement remind
me as well of the geniuses on the German Social Democratic Party who
declared that it was too early to call a general strike against Hitler, and
then declared it was too late when he won.

Richard’s point about the aleatory or the random is well made.  Politics
takes place in open systems as Bhaskar would have put it. Bannon made his
move, but he has found out that, as the neo-Clausewitzians in the American
military put it, the enemy (we) have a vote.


I myself cannot see how the Trump Gang can survive the fever pitch that
politics in the USA has reached. Huge sections of the people have made up
their mind about Trump.  For them, he is a fascist *tout court*.  The
Aristotelians and the Trotskyists among us may pale at the incorrect use of
the label ‘Fascist’, but it is a very effective piece of fast thinking that
is mobilising thousands upon thousands. In any case the point about the
incorrect use of the label fascist was that misuse meant that we would not
recognize the danger of real fascism when it appeared. That does not apply
here.  Bannon is a very real and present danger who has decided upon
“Operation Crash Through”.  If he succeeds we are all in terrible trouble.


comradely


Gary
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[Marxism] Shock events

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I just followed S Guardian link to Chuck Schumer's speech. May god help us
all. What a fool!  I posted the following on my facebook page in response
to a request for a comment. I hope the list indluges me.

There is an interesting post circulating on Facebook by Heather Richardson
from Boston College about the Trump Show. It correctly IMHO points the
finger at Bannon as being the puppet master who is behind Trump’s early
moves.  Richardson argues that Bannon is staging a series of shock events.
These disorient and divide and shift power decisively in one direction. In
some ways the concept of a shock event reminds me of Klein’s ‘disaster
capitalism’. In my time the master of it was Bjelke-Petersen.

I think it is true that Bannon is moving swiftly to use the executive
powers of the Presidency to break the consensus and to shift  American
politics decisively to the Far-Right. But I think that Richardson
overestimates the disorientation factor.  Trump & Bannon have created, I
believe, unprecedented unity against them.  Several state apparatuses have
been alienated – the State Department especially, also possibly the CIA,
and the Justice Department.  Richard Seymour, over at Lenin’s Tomb, points
out that CNN and the New York Times have also been dubbed the enemy. Only
that old reprobate Rupert Murdoch seems to be on Trump’s side.

Now the Democratic Party seems to be creaking into gear.  I won’t say what
I think of the Democratic party, but nonetheless its moving into opposition
to the President is a significant event.  Recall, Obama has gone from “We
hope you succeed, because if you succeed, America succeeds” to criticising
Trump openly and praising the demonstrators.

This is what I think is happening.  The economic crisis – secular
stagnation- is eroding the legitimacy of the neo-liberal Centre.  The
disciples of Hayek and Friedman promised us a brave new world and they have
given us social misery. They have loaded us onto wagons and the destination
has been Precaria. We have no job security and increasingly to be on social
security is to be a welfare suspect.

The Right have been first in the field scooping up support from those who
have been crying out for decades for relief from neoliberalism. Bannon
promises to spend trillions to create jobs.  He is going to move
decisively, he says, in the direction of deficit spending.  I have no idea
if he can pull that off. In the meantime he is destroying the phenomenon of
the progressive neoliberal centre.

Something similar is happening in Australia.  Our Prime Minister is the
quintessential neoliberal progressivist. He has had to shed all his
progressivism to cling to power. Now Dutton and Morrison are openly
praising Trump. All that is a prelude to a move against Turnbull. What is
missing in Australia though is the Bannon factor.  We do not have a far
right Keynesian.  All sides seem to babble on about “budget repair”.  Could
that change?  If a far right figure emerged here who talked about deficit
spending to bring back the good old days, then we could be in trouble.
Praise the Lord Hanson is simply stupid.

To conclude these fairly scattered thoughts.  A mighty struggle is under –
New York and California are battling the Rest. This struggle has toppled
over into the UK, where the struggle is now over the Trump State Visit.  The
Palace has moved to get the visit downgraded to an ordinary visit, because
the Queen fears she will be booed if she sits in a carriage with
Trump.  Theresa
May is panic stricken.  The photograph of her holding hands with Trump will
haunt her all her days.

May was forced to criticise (weakly) Trump because of the uproar. Turnbull
has gotten away with a refusal. So far.


comradely


Gary
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[Marxism] protests

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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The big question on everyone's mind is whether the protests go the way of
the anti-Iraq war protest movement.  They peaked and faded and left
everyone demoralized. I personally think not because Trump is different.
He is coming for us, not just someone over there and far away. There is
also the vital element that he does not have legitimacy for his assaults.

Bush, too, did not win a majority of votes, but the attack on the Twin
Towers gave him a mandate to take revenge. I recall clearly the workers
surrounding him as he stood on the rubble and spoke to and for millions of
Americans. For a moment he got to play the bourgeois hero rather than the
draft dodger.

Trump has had no such moment to turn to his advantage. If he gets one, then
we are in trouble. For now legal, peaceful, mass demonstrations are
spooking him.  Long may that continue.

Comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] Advantage Resistance

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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These are early days, but I feel that the Resistance to Trump is ahead, not
yet decisively but definitely making good ground. I am inclined to agree
with Richard Seymour when he says that Bannon is attempting to shift
politics irredeemably to the right, through the use of the executive order
system -http://www.leninology.co.uk/2017/01/under-sign-of-saturn-mov
ement-is-born.html.   I also agree with his diagnosis of the weaknesses of
the Trump camp.  One of Trump’s strengths is that he understands show
business.   His main weakness is that while political campaigning does have
a show business element, politics cannot be reduced to show business.  One
needs to campaign, yes, but one also needs to govern, and he is making a
hash of that.

The Trump show reminds me of the 19 year long reign of the Country Party
Premier in Qld, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911-2005).  Trump and Petersen
had the same approach to the English language - mangle it! Petersen had the
same base among the marginalised, especially the rural marginalised.
Petersen positioned himself as a vanguardist for conservative forces.  Just
as Trump is deploying the executive order system, Petersen used Qld’s
unicameral parliament and a gerrymandered electorate, where rural votes
were worth more than city votes, to discard centrist consensus politics and
govern from the far-right.

He also terrorised the state apparatuses, especially the education
apparatus. But in the end the state took him out through an anti-corruption
tribunal set up when Petersen was away running for Federal politics.  Petersen,
though, was always a side show.  He was the Premier of one of the
unimpoertant states.  He never had an army nor access to nuclear weapons,
thankfully! Trump’s potential power is too awful to contemplate.

Nonetheless, Trump might meet a similar fate to Petersen. But there is a
lot of water, hopefully not blood, to flow under the bridge before we come
to that.  It will only be when Trump is a direct threat to the interests of
the business elite and forces within the state, that there will be moves
against him.  In the meantime, as I always believed, he represents a bigger
threat to those forces outside America who have traditionally allied
themselves with the “leader of the Free World.” Theresa May’s embarrassment
at been caught holding the hand of the pussy-grabber is just one egregious
instance.

The planned Trump visit to UK is a wonderful opportunity.  The Tories have
foolishly made it a Royal Visit where the Guest (Trump) parades through the
street of London in an open carriage sitting alongside the Queen.  To the
Brits this is one of their key cards – the use of the Royalty to secure a
good deal from the Guest.  But the Royals’ interests do not necessarily
coincide with those of the British State, never mind the ruling
Conservative Party.  The “Firm”, as the Windsor Family are known as, will
not want to be at the centre of huge swirling anti-Trump demonstrations.  And
huge demonstrations there will be.

The irony is that the Right outside the States, especially in Australia, is
still convinced that Trump’s victory has strengthened their hand.  The
*Salvage* authors are correct that this time looks good for Fascists.  But
dialectically it also is good for the Left.  That is because the Centre has
no answers to the Far Right, only the Left do.   Much indeed is at stake,
for how the Left-Fascist struggle will pan out, will determine nothing less
than the future of humanity.


comradely


Gary
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[Marxism] the protests in NY

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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I have seen small clips of the thousands chanting "let them in" in response
to the shocking brutality of Trump's executive order.  Truly it is the
pulse of freedom that carries people out into the freezing night to support
their fellow humans. I salute every one of them. They carry our hopes that
we can survive the onslaught from the crypto-fascist buffoon that occupies
the White House. I look at him and think of these line from Macbeth

*CAITHNESS*
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
Some say he’s mad, others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury. But, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distempered cause
Within the belt of rule.

*CAITHNESS*
He is fortifying his castle at Dunsinane with heavy defenses. Some say he’s
insane. Those who hate him less call it brave anger. One thing is certain:
he’s out of control.

*ANGUS*
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands.
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach.
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.


comradely

Gary
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[Marxism] The Trump CIA speech

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Lou thought this speech showed the POTUS was insane. Certainly, it was
beyond weird: Narcissus on over drive.  How, I wondered, could this
creature become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world?  I can
only offer as an answer

Az men iz raykh iz men i sheyn i klug i men ken zingen.


comradely

Gary
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Re: [Marxism] Letter published in Victoria Times Colonist

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Great letter Ken

comradely

Gary

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 2:46 AM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> The Victoria Times Colonist has a circulation approaching 50,000.
> If 20% of those readers look at the letters to the editor and half of
> those read them thoroughly, then I reached 5,000 people.
> Not bad for a retiree with time on his hands.
> ken h
>
>
> Election doesn't mean we have to play dead
>
> Re: "We need to accept results of election," letter, Jan. 24
>
> The letter-writer reminds us to accept the election results.  We have no
> choice but to do that.
> But we don't have to play dead.
> The gains that were made in the 20th century for voting rights, women's
> rights and the rights of sexual minorities were not won at the ballot box,
> but in the street.
> And that is where they will be defended.  The wonderful Women's March that
> we saw on five continents is just the beginning of that fight.
>
> Ken Hiebert
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[Marxism] poetry and Trump

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Now all the truth is out,

Be secret and take defeat

From any brazen throat,

For how can you compete,

Being honor bred, with one

Who were it proved he lies

Were neither shamed in his own

Nor in his neighbours’ eyes. . .


I had been intending quoting the above lines on Trump and was somewhat
chagrined to learn that I had been pipped to the post by Stephen Burt at
http://bostonreview.net/literature-culture-poetry/stephen-burt-reading-yeats-age-trump
.

But I thought I would throw in a word of caution. Burt's article is very
much worth a read. His grasp of Yeats' poetry is very comprehensive, his
grasp of Yeats' politics much less so. But I think what most worries me
about Burt's advocacy of a turn to Yeats, is Burt's failure to recognize
the Nietzschean temptation.

The phenomenon of Left Nietzschean has puzzled me for a long time now.
Nietzsche was a through and through figure of the far-right. There is no
contradicting that with a reference to his madness. What he wrote he wrote
and much of it was vile.

But the appeal for leftist intellectuals, seems to me to be that Nietzsche
strikes a note of oppositionalism. His is the pose of the neglected
isolated thinker, artist, philosopher. We can glide over the facts that,
when he is being oppositional,  he is bemoaning that we do not slaughter
the "botched", and that we have turned our backs on slavery, etc.

In the poem above Yeats is telling a friend to exult because the masses are
against him and his loss proves his worth. We must rather hold to a belief
in the masses.  Not a naive one of course, but we must hold to the fact
that some 75% of Americans either did not vote or voted against Trump. So
there is no need to be "secret and exult". We must also rejoice in the fact
that Trump's party was thoroughly spoiled by the sheer mass of the Women's
protests.

One day of protest will not bring Trump down. Of course not.  But even
given the uneven consciousness on display, the Women's protests were still
a carnival of resistance. And there is much in that to give us hope.

comradely


Gary
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[Marxism] thoughts on the blog about Soros

[Gary MacLennan via Marxism]

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Lou wrote: People who have not become radicalized always tend to follow the
cues of bourgeois politicians. When I was 21 years old, I kept hoping (and
even praying) that a peace candidate could be elected and end the war in
the same way people today hope that a liberal Democrat could replace Trump
and be a far better keeper of his or her promises than Barack Obama. While
Bernie Sanders might run again in 2020, I expect that the candidate will be
someone much more in the Elizabeth Warren mold.
.

My comment: I clipped the above from Lou's blog because I agreed with it so
much.  I have to confess that I am tempted to come out as a firm believer
in conspiracies, but I have learned not to take myself too seriously.
Soros does not particularly interest me and maybe that is a political
mistake.  What I am much more interested in, though, is the phenomenon of
awakening consciousness, which was so much on display at the Women's march.
Lou is right on the money with his realization that awakening consciousness
at first orientates to the existing political framework.

Somewhere Rosa Luxembourg talked of the masses emerging as a political
subject. That was what the Women's March was about. But if I was inclined
to niggle there was a fair bit about the day that one could niggle about.

 I cannot listen to Scarlet Johannson without thinking of the fate of
Palestinian women.  I nearly choked when Michael Moore talked about taking
over the Democratic Party. Rage gripped me when Ashley Judd mentioned
Condoleezza and Hilary with approval.

But these were just contradictory moments.  Johannson spoke very movingly
about Planned Parenthood and that was important. Moore's little workshop on
expanding the civic sphere was also vital. And Judd's overall performance
was wonderfully joyous and outrageous. So let us get on board the movement
that is just beginning. Every act of the pig-like Narcissus that squats in
the Oval Office will build our strength.  *Allez les Rouges*! Onward to the
American Revolution!

comradely

Gary
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